by Naima Simone
Dragging in a ragged breath, I start to move, watching myself fuck both of Cypress’s holes. Knowing it’s Cypress who I’m possessing, taking—it’s the most potent aphrodisiac.
“Jude,” she whines, her hands braced against the door. She dips and rolls, accepting every stroke, every drive I’m delivering to her body. Pleasure sizzles up and down my spine in electric currents, threatening to short circuit my brain, my existence. “Please. Give it to me. Please.”
That plea in her voice, the suction of her pussy, the tight, stranglehold of her ass… I snap. And bury myself in her over and over. Using her. Worshipping her. Giving to her.
Sweeping a hand over her hip, I locate her clit, brush it. Pinch it.
With a cry that bounces off the walls of the bathroom, she breaks, shatters. Her pussy clamps down on me, and with a grunt, I keep riding her, making sure every last clutch, ripple, and pulse of her sex lasts for her. When those screams ease into whimpers, I let go, crashing into her, pounding at her until I explode. Goddamn, the ecstasy—it barrels through me, pinning me in place, helpless and glad for it.
Breathing hard, I plant a kiss against her soft nape, gently removing my fingers and cock from her. Quickly taking care of the condom, I return to her, turn her around.
Tunneling my fingers through her hair, I tilt her head back, studying her eyes, hazy with lingering pleasure, lips swollen from my mouth, and skin flushed from the release that damn near killed me.
And I’m not satisfied. I want more.
“Call in,” I murmur. The glaze clears a little as my words sink in. “Call in and come home with me. I’m not finished with you.”
She doesn’t reply, and I prepare myself for her to turn me down. It’s an unfair request; I can admit that. I should be returning, too, but that takes a back seat to having her again. Lying next to her. Feeling her breath on my skin.
Her lashes flutter and lower, and I almost rescind the request.
But then she whispers, “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” I frown, but before I can ask her to explain, she nods, meeting my gaze. “Okay.”
I blow out a breath, relief and renewed lust flowing through me like a tide rushing back in to consume a beach.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter Ten
Cypress
“What did that mean?” Jude’s question is quiet in his even more quiet bedroom. It’s been hours after the cataclysmic event in the men’s bathroom of that dive bar and more mind-bending sex in his apartment. My body is tired, limbs heavy from sex that is the stuff of myths and porn. So my fogged mind takes a moment to decipher what he’s referring to. Just as it lands on what he’s talking about, he says, “You said something about regrets earlier.”
“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done,” I murmur. “It’s a quote by Lucille Ball. It means I’d rather regret things I’ve tried and done, than not do them out of fear.” I silently debate over how much to tell him. But maybe it’s the after-sex lassitude. Or the cocoon of intimacy that seems to invade the room. Or maybe it’s that for once, I want to open up to another person, be honest with them. No, not just another person. Jude. “I memorize quotes from powerful women. It’s a hobby I started when I was fifteen. At first, it was like they were giving me advice and wisdom on how to be like them. To be successful and powerful myself.”
Especially since I didn’t receive that from my own parents. What had started out as a weird, fun thing to do for a lonely fifteen-year-old became a habit and self-encouragement.
“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds,” he recites softly.
“That’s beautiful.” The power in the simple quote rocks me. It describes him, and even myself. We’ve both faced some damn difficult things, but we didn’t stay buried. We grew in spite of them. “Who said that?”
“I don’t know.” He pauses. “I heard it on an episode of Criminal Minds.”
“Really?” I snicker, and his low chuckle rumbles against me. After the room quiets again, another thought sneaks under my post-sex radar, and I can’t evict it. Sighing, I surrender to the curiosity. “Can I ask you something?” I murmur against his skin.
“Yeah,” he says, voice thick with the beginnings of sleep. I hesitate, but his arm around my shoulders lightly squeezes me. “Ask it.”
I close my eyes. Hell, I opened this door. Might as well walk through it now. “Is Ana part of the reason you’re leaving for London?”
He doesn’t immediately reply, and his fingers cease the lazy, aimless stroking over my skin. “Would it make me sound like a coward if I said, yes?” he finally says.
“No.” I stack my hands on his chest and prop my chin on top so I can look into his eyes. “It would make you honest. And smart. Like I said before, I feel a little sorry for her because she’s hurting, but that woman has bunny boiler written all over her.”
He snickers, and the low sound slides under my ribs, striking me in the heart. That hint of laughter shouldn’t have me feeling like I just won a gold medal.
“She’s part of the reason,” he admits.
“And the other?” I press, something in me needing him to be able to trust me, confide in me.
He sighs, his gaze darkening. A tiny muscle tics along his jaw, and a fine tension enters his big frame. I don’t have access to what’s going on in his mind, but clairvoyance isn’t required to guess there’s a struggle waging there.
Dragging in a breath, I sit up, drawing the sheet around me as I cross my legs, my knee touching his hip. He frowns, but I shake my head. If I expect him to share with me, I need to be brave enough, vulnerable enough, to do the same.
“I worked at Universal Health Group for three years, four if you count my internship there my senior year of college. It was a good place to work; I was using my degree, and it paid well. The security I didn’t have growing up, I was able to provide for myself and still help take care of Mom.” I pause. That was the easy part, but the next wouldn’t be so easy to share. “A year ago, I’d stayed late to finish a report. I thought I was the only one in the department, so I was surprised when my supervisor called me, asking me to come to his office. I didn’t think anything of it—I mean, I’d had meetings with him plenty of times before. But this time—” I swallow, moistening my suddenly dry mouth. “This time was different. He was waiting for me at the door, and as soon as I entered the office, he closed it behind me. Locked it. I knew something was off, dammit. I knew. But I convinced myself it was nothing, that he just probably wanted to discuss sensitive information and didn’t want to be interrupted. Looking back, I was so stupid. So willfully naive and ignorant.”
“Cypress,” Jude whispers, pushing himself up in the bed, his gaze fixed on me. Knowledge dawns in his eyes, shadowing them, and more than anything, I want to crawl in his lap, curl up against him, lay my head on that wide chest. But I can’t. As if I’ve been transported back to that office, I remain frozen and helpless, unable to do anything but continue.
“Instead of sitting behind his desk as he usually did, he instructed me to sit on the couch. Again, it was weird, but I complied. He sat next to me and started talking about my performance and how I was an asset to the company. That with my degrees, education, and work ethic, I could go far. I was so pleased, so flattered that when he laid a hand on my thigh, I didn’t really panic. He’d been nothing but professional with me until then, I didn’t comprehend… I didn’t see…” I wrap my arms around myself, bowing my head. “He told me my name was being bandied about for an upcoming promotion for senior financial manager, which shocked me, because while I’d busted my ass at the job, I was still only four years in, and there were other employees who had been there longer. But still, I was thrilled. Senior financial manager. At my age? I wanted it, knew I could handle it. And he assured me with his recommendation, I would get the position. All I had to do was put in a little harder work, more hours, show some more i
nitiative. At first, I was confused, because even then, it was eight o’clock at night, and I was the only one in the office. I’d already been displaying initiative, giving them the hours. That’s when…that’s when he…”
You need to show me how much you really want this promotion, Cypress.
Don’t be naive. This is how the game is played. Quid pro quo. And if you intend to get ahead, you’re going to have to learn how to play like a big girl.
You give me what I want, and you’ll get that promotion. And you can start by getting on your knees right now and showing me some appreciation.
Even now, I can hear that slick, sophisticated voice thick with lust and…and pleasure. Satisfaction. As if he derived joy out of degrading me, out of putting me in my place. Which in his eyes, was on my knees, sucking his dick.
Bile roils in my stomach, razes a path up my chest, and churns at the back of my throat.
The bed shifts under me, and before I can steady myself, big, powerful arms encircle me, thick thighs bracket my own, and a solid wall made of flesh and muscle presses against my spine. And his touch, his hands on me are so different from the ones that caused me such humiliation and degradation. With Jude, I’m surrounded, shielded. Protected.
A shuddering breath escapes me, as does the encroaching panic. The nausea eases, and surrendering to the need I can’t deny, I lean back into him. Letting him support me. Letting him hold me up.
“His hand tightened on my thigh, and he told me if I wanted that promotion, I had to get on my knees and give him a blow job…to start. Then I had to get on my back and prove I wanted that position and raise. At first, I was shocked and couldn’t move. I guess he took that as my agreement, because he put his hand between my legs, t-touched me,” I stutter, a shudder ripping through me. Only Jude’s strength, the power of his embrace, grounds me in the present. “I knocked him off me, told him what he could do with that offer, and got the hell out of there.
“The next morning, I went to Human Resources. I was so scared about losing my job, my credibility, everything I’d worked so hard for. But I went. And I lied,” I whisper, shame crawling through me, and though a year had passed, the oily coat of it continues to dirty me. “I told them it happened to someone else, and I’d overheard it. I was too ashamed to admit that it was me. Too ashamed to confess that I’d been so naive and allowed myself to be in that position.”
“Sweetheart, you had nothing to be ashamed of,” he says, his deep voice a rumble in my ear and against my back. “That sick motherfucker was at fault. And your company for allowing it to happen. Because I’d bet my left nut this wasn’t the first time he’d done this, or the first time he’d been reported. Sexually harassing you, assaulting you, wouldn’t have been so easy for him if he’d been afraid of the consequences. No, he did it knowing there wouldn’t be any.”
“Yes.” I nod. “I found that out the hard way. Human Resources took down my report, but in the following days, it was me who was punished. I was called in to meeting after meeting with the company’s executives, forced to recount what happened while they questioned me, picked apart my story. I had the feeling they knew I’d lied about this happening to another woman, which made me wonder what my supervisor had told them. That I’d come on to him? That I’d propositioned him? But the meetings were just the start of the retaliation tactics. I was scrutinized, every move I made in the office observed, noted. They recorded how I spent my time, even down to how long I spent in the bathroom. I was given poor performance appraisals, when before that night, I’d received nothing but glowing reviews. Then the rumors started. Whispers about how and why I’d been hired in the first place. It was hell, Jude. Hell. And I remained in it for a year out of sheer stubbornness. Even though I vomited nearly every morning before going in, was ostracized and punished for reporting how my supervisor had assaulted me—I kept showing up to work because I couldn’t be a quitter along with being a victim.”
“You’re neither, Cypress.”
The quiet, simple belief ringing in those three words rock through me like a seismic quake. I twist in his arms, needing to see his face, his eyes. My breath catches in my throat. More than ever, he reminds me of that fierce warrior angel with his solemn expression and the blazing fire in his gaze. It warms me, reaches beneath skin and bone to penetrate that icy, atrophied part of me that shriveled and curled in on itself when I lost nearly everything, including my pride, my security, my faith in people.
It’s only been months, but Jude has returned to me some of what I’d believed forever gone. How that’s possible, I have no clue. I don’t even know when it happened, but he accomplished a miracle. Took my disillusionment and restored a bit of my faith.
The longer I stare at him, the more this longing and hunger stretching inside of me deepens. The fiercer it grows.
As does the fear.
Oh God, he could crush me.
The whispered thought is low, soft, but the echo of it screams like a banshee heralding the coming of a death. This man… I know he wouldn’t hurt me physically, but… Without even the slightest pull on my imagination, I can too easily see myself waiting in an empty, lonely apartment, waiting for him to show. To offer me the slightest scrap of affection and attention.
Can imagine myself broken, a shell when he leaves me.
Can envision myself as my mother.
Because he will leave. They all do.
But not if you leave them first.
“My father had this saying he would spout every time we lost a football game, failed a test, or somehow fell short of our own expectations,” Jude continues, gently rocking me side to side as if I’m a child. “‘It’s not the failure that defines you but what you do after.’ I don’t look at what happened to you—though that wasn’t a failure by any means. I look at what you did after. You rushed to your mother’s side. Packed up your life and started it over. Refused to be broken by assholes who think they can do whatever they want because they have money and so-called power. You didn’t roll over, lay down, and die. You said ‘fuck you’ and survived. Sweetheart, that’s not quitting or being victimized. That’s being a fighter. And you fucking humble me.”
Tears that I haven’t shed in so damn long—that I refused to let fall—clog my throat, sting my eyes. I squeeze them shut, unable to strip away that last protective shield in place. Not even for Jude. Maybe especially because of Jude. I’ve given him more of me than I’ve ever offered someone else—friend or lover. This bit I need to reserve for myself. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. Something…
“Your turn,” I remind him, voice hoarse with the sob I won’t allow. “London. What’s the other reason?”
He rubs his cheek against mine, and I should ask him to let me go. Tell him I’m good, and I no longer need his comfort. Instead, I relax farther against him, savoring this moment. The feel of his body cradling mine. The strength of arms and thighs surrounding me. The musky Jude-and-sex scent that teases my nose. I inhale, attempting to trap that particular scent in my sensory memory, keep it locked tight for those moments when all I’ll have is just that…a memory.
“Ever since I’ve been able to pick up a pencil, I’ve been drawing. It’s my first love, my passion,” he begins.
Automatically, my gaze goes to the art on his wall. Now I know most of the framed pieces are his, and since moving in, I’ve snuck into his room and studied them. Pencil-drawn portraits, some in ink, others painted with what appears to my untrained eye as oil. They’re all beautiful, lifelike, even the abstract renderings of the Chicago skyline. Even if Jude hadn’t confessed art is his passion, I’d already guessed it from the care, attention to detail, and beauty poured onto paper, parchment, and canvas.
“When Knox started apprenticing for Gino, the guy who owned the shop before Knox bought him out, it all clicked for me. I was meant to tattoo. True, I loved working on paper or canvas, but a living, breathing canvas? Paintings could be destroyed, lost, or defaced. But with a tattoo, my work would be immo
rtalized—I would be immortalized. Gino allowed me to start apprenticing at sixteen, and even when Knox focused more on fighting, I remained there, learning, perfecting. Even with everything that’s gone down in my life—Connor’s death, the division in the family, Ana—in that chair with my machine in my hand is the one place I’m at peace. Nothing can touch me there.”
I twist in his arms, studying him, picking up the sadness in his eyes even as he speaks about his purpose, his one love. Shifting, I straddle his thighs, my pussy aligning with his cock, my breasts pressing against his chest. But in spite of the position, this isn’t about sex; it’s about connection. It’s about letting him know he’s not alone, that he has me in any way he needs.
“But I’m twenty-seven, about to be twenty-eight in another month. And I’ve never had anything of my own. Not my reputation, not my shop, not even my damn name. I’m not Jude Gordon, tattoo artist. I’m Jude, little brother to “Hard Knox” Gordon. Who works in Knox’s shop.” He releases a hard, jagged laugh that scrapes over my skin like churned-up gravel. “Fuck, I know how I sound. Ungrateful. Spoiled. Childish.”
“No,” I say quietly, stroking a hand down his arm and tangling my fingers with his. “You don’t.” I know about wanting to do something on your own, being recognized on your own merit. It’s why I refused to accept Dan’s money so long ago. I wanted to win a scholarship, succeed in college and life on my own so it could be mine—no one else’s. Just mine. No, I get it.
“A part of me has always wrestled with whether I’m respected as an artist for myself or because of who my brother is. I think London will answer that for me. MMA is popular there, but not like it is here. I’ll have the chance to prove myself to not just the customers there, but to me. I need those four months to find out who I am as an artist, and I know Knox doesn’t understand, but…”
“But sometimes another person’s belief in you isn’t enough,” I finish for him, even as a pit yawns wide in my stomach, in my chest. And steadily filling it is grief. Loneliness. Resentment. Because while I comprehend what he’s saying, what he needs, in spite of every warning, every lesson from the past, I’ve become attached. Pain strikes at my chest like a hissing snake, and I force myself not to flinch, not to betray what’s swirling and coalescing like an ominous storm. There’s no point in allowing him a peek inside, into admitting to him the emotions flying and slamming into me like debris caught up in a tornado’s winds.