After Hours: (InterMix)

by Cara McKenna

  “You like the way I fuck,” he growled, the tell me implicit in his eyes.

  “I love how you fuck.”

  A cruel smile, and he dropped back down, looming. I squeezed the hard swells of his shoulders then held his hips. His breathing had changed. It was short and high in his chest, speeding alongside his cock. His face looked harsh but the control was bleeding out of him, eyes unfocused. If ever I had a chance to steal a scrap of his power, this was it.

  “You gonna come for me, Kelly?”

  He answered with a throaty, “Oh,” and I knew I had him.

  “Show me.”

  “I will. I’ll let you see. Let you see what I’ve imagined, every fucking time I’ve shot in my hand, thinking about you.”

  Just like that, he stole back the reins, left me wordless and hazy, all my blood throbbing around his cock and not a single thought in my skull.

  “I’ll show you,” he promised, and trailed off. Pleasure had the better of him. It drove his racing strokes, escaping his lips in heavy grunts.

  I could see it—the exact moment we reached his point of no return. Eyes narrowed to slits, lips flushed, face mean, so mean. I grabbed his punishing hips just to feel the muscles working, and locked my gaze on his driving cock.

  He didn’t even make me beg.

  He went dead-silent, face strained through a dozen fierce, sloppy thrusts. Then all at once he jerked out, stripped the condom with a snap, and pumped himself in a rough fist. His moan was soundless, lips round. With one arm braced beside my shoulder, he pressed his crown to my belly on the first spurt, hot come lashing my skin. Again, again, until his hand slowed. A single bead of sweat slipped down his cheek and chin, hitting my collarbone like a raindrop.

  Bleed on me, I thought, holding his sides, feeling his ribs swell and contract. Let me drown in your sweat and blood and come and every other filthy thing that makes you this way.

  I took a deep, hitching breath and stroked his sweat-damp hair, suppressing my urge to kiss him madly. Maybe he’d have welcomed it, but I didn’t like the way I felt. I wanted to kiss like this was love, like we’d just fucked to celebrate his proposing to me. I was smart enough to keep the boundary between attraction and affection delineated, and save those kisses for a man who’d recognize them for what they were.

  Music drifted from the living room, rising and falling on a loop, the menu screen of the movie.

  When the agility returned to his limbs, Kelly moved to the edge of the mattress and procured a hand towel from the side table drawer. He tidied me with stoic sweeps, sleepiness already dulling his gaze. We settled on our sides, my back hugged tight to Kelly’s front, both of us sweaty and ripe and spent. His palm rested on my ribs, once possessive, now feeling heavy and lazy, even fond.

  “So,” he said at length, lips against my neck.

  “Yes?”

  “You feel exploited or spoiled?”

  “A bit of both.”

  He made a cocky noise. “Good enough.”

  I reached back to pat his hair, my dangerous predator pacified for now. “You were right. There was something in it for me.”

  He pressed his half-stiff cock to my butt, but he was wrong. Nice as that was, Kelly had been the treat. Kelly with his callous words and voice and fists, all that mastery dressed up as sadism.

  He was the best lover I’d ever had. So far ahead of the competition, I couldn’t even recall their names or faces. When I’d amuse myself on quiet nights with memories of this affair, I’d think of his cock, sure. But more than that, it’d be those bossy hands and leveling eyes. It’d be Kelly, possessing me. Using me. And yeah, spoiling me rotten. I’d slept with the enemy, and fuck . . . Who knew a chauvinist would make such an incredible lay?

  “You sticking around for day two?” he asked.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not really. But you could probably make a run for it now, while I’m incapacitated.”

  I laughed. “I think I’ll stay right here.” Right here, where everything felt surprisingly simple. Where my worries faded to abstract concepts. Where our Saturday shift felt weeks away, and life was no more complicated than the needs of our naked bodies, the world no wider than his bed.

  “I’m curious to see what round two will look like.”

  “It’ll look like whatever I want it to,” Kelly said, but a yawn sucked all the ominousness from his words.

  “Don’t fall asleep. You promised me dinner.”

  I wound up regretting the comment; a minute later Kelly dragged himself from the bed, putting an end to the cuddling I was secretly enjoying.

  And there he was. Kelly, just Kelly. Just a naked man rendered docile by his release, muscles beautiful but stripped of all threats. In that instant, those once-intimidating bruises made him seem heartbreakingly fragile.

  I watched him pull on a fresh pair of shorts, his eyes catching mine as he straightened the waistband.

  “Yeah?”

  “Just looking at you. While you’re still tranquilized.”

  That earned me a grin. “How do you like your steak?”

  “Medium.”

  Kelly nodded, heavy lids blocking all the coldness from his stare. “Whatever you say.”

  Chapter Ten

  I woke when the first light of dawn kissed my eyelids. Was it five? Six? Later? For a second I cared, then the weight of Kelly’s arm registered, a pleasurable anchor draped over my ribs.

  One of my hands was limp and numb and I fidgeted as gently as I could, trying not to wake him. I thought I’d succeeded for a breath, then he let loose a low, groggy noise.

  I craned my neck, watching his eyes open to the narrowest slits.

  “Mhh.”

  “Good morning, Kelly.”

  “Morning.”

  Sleep had left me fearless, and the morning chill had me craving his heat. I grasped his wrist and lay his arm along my waist, wriggling closer. In the back of my head, I knew I wouldn’t be so snuggly with Kelly, were I more awake. But just now . . . No blanket was this cozy, no comforter so warm and encapsulating.

  He did as I secretly wished, tugging me close. A happy noise hummed against my neck, chased by the lazy press of his lips. I luxuriated in the contact, knowing this sleepy, easy Kelly wouldn’t last. This man was by turns cold and hot, controlled and crazed. For this brief moment he was none of those things. Just warm, just calm. Just some mysterious sliver of sedate, satisfied Kelly Robak, one I knew intuitively I was blessed to glimpse. The most elusive of species.

  After round one of sex, Kelly had cooked us steaks, and we ate them on his back patio with bottles of beer, sipping until the sun was sinking, shooting the shit about work.

  Round two had been a frenzy. No waiting, no teasing, no games. Just straight-up nasty fucking on his bed, fast and rough and utterly exhausting. After the bare minimum of tidying up, we’d passed out, crawling under the covers at some vague hour after our sweat had cooled.

  I could smell the sex, there in his sheets. I could feel it between my legs and in the rawness of my hips and the carpet burn on my elbows.

  Against my nape, the soft press of his mouth firmed to a true kiss. I craned my neck so our lips could meet, breath be damned. A romantic start to the day, I thought, my body rousing equally from pleasure and alarm.

  “Morning,” he said again.

  “What’s for breakfast?”

  He laughed, the tiniest nasal huff. “What would you like?”

  “Pancakes?”

  “I don’t think I have the ingredients for that.”

  “You tell me, then.” I grinned, registering my choice of words. “That’s what you like, after all. Doing the telling. I’ll answer when asked.”

  He smiled back. “I’m not awake enough to be a bossy dick yet. But I go
t eggs and bread, and bacon, I think. It’s that or cereal and milk.”

  “Eggs, then.” I rolled up onto my side and forearm, gazing down at that rare sight—Kelly, declawed. His mood-ring eyes were neutral gray, summer clouds that threatened no rain.

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “You’re sexy.”

  I blushed, which probably just exacerbated whatever baby-faced breed of hotness he was finding in me.

  “Take a shower,” he said, tossing the covers aside. “I’ll get the coffee started.”

  “As you command.”

  He smirked at me as he stood, mischievous and approving. He’d slept in his shorts, and my attention got dragged down his chest and abs and crotch and those big thighs. The blush drained from my cheeks, seeking other parts to heat.

  “Get your eyes off my dick and get your butt in the shower,” he said, sleepy Kelly clearly punching out and handing the reins to Taskmaster Robak.

  I did as I was told, warming to the idea of his domineering side returning.

  Kelly’s shower nearly flayed all my skin off, and I had to turn it way down to keep from getting bruised by the water pressure. Parts of me already felt tenderized, my labia stinging as I soaped myself, my backside sore from his slaps. Even my eyes felt overly sensitive to the bright bathroom lights.

  I rinsed the conditioner from my hair, then shrieked to find Kelly leaning against the wall, watching me through a gap in the curtain.

  “Jesus!”

  He didn’t apologize, just let his gaze drop down and rise back up, looking like some hybrid of hungry and amused, but in no hurry to pounce.

  “How d’you like your eggs?”

  “However. Just not runny.”

  He nodded once and disappeared, drawing the curtain back in place on clacking plastic rings.

  Once dry, I pulled on yesterday’s skirt, clasped a bra and found a clean tee shirt from my bag. I skipped underwear, liking how it felt. Like a secret, just between me and the cool morning air, until Kelly came prowling and found me out. I dabbed concealer under my eyes, threw on some mascara and declared myself presentable.

  Following the ambrosial smell of bacon, I found Kelly in the kitchen, scrambling eggs in a glass bowl.

  “Coffee’s ready.”

  I filled a mug and stood on the other side of the counter. The condom wrapper was still there, and I picked it up and studied it, smirking.

  He poured the eggs into a pan with a sizzle, then fetched glasses from a cupboard.

  “Orange juice or milk?”

  “Is there any champagne left? We could have mimosas.”

  Kelly swapped our tumblers for stemware, and grabbed the bottle from the fridge. At some point he’d corked it with a rubber stopper, and it came out with a limp pop. I poured us each a measure and topped it off with OJ.

  Soon enough he set plates on the breakfast bar, heaped with scrambled eggs and bacon and toast—two Kelly-sized servings. Then again, I’d need my strength, if today’s sex-a-thon was going to be a repeat of yesterday’s.

  We pulled high stools to the counter and Kelly held up his glass. I tapped it with mine, not bothering to ask what we were toasting. To more nasty sex, I thought. Fucking cheers to that.

  I sipped my mimosa. “There’s something awfully satisfying about a cocktail that’s socially acceptable before noon. Makes me feel like I’m getting away with something.”

  “You’ll love Larkhaven then, if you stick around long enough to attend any inter-ward meetings. Anytime there’s an off-campus powwow to discuss some policy change, people come in totally hungover the next morning.”

  “I noticed everyone seemed pretty thirsty at that going-away party.”

  He nodded. “It’d be exhausting doing any of our jobs for a regular eight-hour shift. Make it twelve? That’d make a hobbyist drinker out of anybody.”

  I stabbed at my eggs, thinking. “Do you ever worry about drinking? You know, because of how your dad was.”

  He shook his head. “He wasn’t my biological father.”

  “Oh. Do you know who was?”

  “I think so.”

  “Did you ever meet him?”

  “Kind of.”

  Kelly wasn’t normally one to be cagey, and I wasn’t normally one to pry, but curiosity had me pressing. “Did you always know your stepdad wasn’t your real dad?”

  “No. Not ’til he got real drunk and told me, when I was about thirteen.”

  I waited patiently to see if he’d continue. After a few forkfuls of egg, he did.

  “I remember it like it was a movie I’ve seen a hundred times. We were in the den, watching the Lions play the Vikings in Minnesota, and they lost. Bad. My dad was wasted, which is like saying the sun rose that day. I was just hitting my growth spurt and I was marinating in angry hormones all the time. I’d just realized I was too big and too quick for him to wale on, and how to detect if he was too drunk and tired to bother trying. So I’d goad him.”

  I grimaced.

  “He was complaining about one of the players, saying what a bum he was, how he’d peaked years ago. I said something like, ‘Yeah, Dad, like you’ve done anything worthwhile in your whole miserable life.’”

  “Oh dear.”

  Kelly drained his glass. “He didn’t get angry. He got this glazed look in his eyes, and just stared at the screen a long time. Then he told me, ‘I’m not your dad, you know. Your real daddy’s some fucked-in-the-head vet your mom spread for, the summer before she met me. Now he’s in the pen, and I’m stuck with you.’ And I just went all numb and cold, because as much as I wanted to hit him, I kind of hoped it was true. I wanted to believe him. I didn’t want that sloppy, alcoholic shithead’s blood in me. I didn’t want to share anything with the guy. Not my house or my mom or my fucking DNA.”

  “Did you say anything?”

  “No. And it never came up again. I doubt he even remembered he told me that, the next day.”

  “And your mom never mentioned it?”

  He shook his head.

  “So you don’t know anything about your real father?”

  “I know some. Enough. I dug around and found my birth certificate, but it had my stepdad’s name on it. So I went to the library and got somebody to help me search the local records, to look for the names of any guys who got incarcerated in the months before I was born. I found one guy’s name who it could have been, and his photograph, in an old article about his arrest. James Mahoney, his name was.”

  “Jeez, you could’ve been Kelly Mahoney?” Cue the fiddle music.

  “I know. Man could shit shamrocks with a name like that. Anyhow, I thought he could’ve been my father, maybe. Tough to tell, from an old black-and-white newspaper head shot, but the dates made sense, and he was a vet, like my stepdad had said.”

  “Did you ask your mom?”

  “Nah. She had enough crap to deal with. Let the poor woman have her secrets.”

  “Did you do anything?”

  “Fixated on him for a while, then just kinda let it go, for a long time. ’Til I was in my mid-twenties and heard about that job in prison security.”

  A chill closed over me. “Where he was locked up? Or was he out already?”

  “He was inside. Still is. And yeah, you guessed it—same place.”

  “Did you see him, while you were there?”

  “Yeah. Every fucking day.”

  “So . . . did you take the job because of him being there?”

  Kelly sipped his coffee. “I told myself I didn’t, that it was just a job, but I’m sure it factored. I’d spent more than a decade wondering about the guy by then.”

  “Did you ever ask him if he’d known your mom?”

  “Nah. I never said shit to him, outside of what I had to, as a guard. I didn’t treat h
im any nicer or any worse than any other inmate there.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Quiet. Not too much trouble. If Vietnam fucked him up, he kept his wounds way under his skin. And if he knew my mom had married a guy named Robak, he never let on. He was just this tall, quiet guy, with weird eyes. Real pale hazel, like ginger ale. Kinda like mine, kinda not. But I’m pretty sure he was the one.”

  “Wow.” I realized I hadn’t touched my food in several minutes, and took a couple bites of cold toast, ruminating. “Did it change things, to meet him? Or to see him, anyhow?”

  “I guess. Mainly it just confused me. Now I had two men I had no clue how to feel about. One complete asshole, but who’d at least been man enough to step up and pretend he was my dad. He sucked, but he stuck around. And this other one, some war-fucked con who probably had no clue his son was standing on the other side of the bars, telling him it’s lights-out on Cell Block C.”

  “What did he get sent away for?”

  Kelly looked down at his hands. “Doesn’t matter. Just something real bad.”

  Indeed, to get locked up for so long. And to make Kelly, the brashest man I’d ever met, go silent this way.

  I decided not to push it any further. My thoughts had drifted to Jack. Jack, with his unconfirmed lineage. Jack, with a dad who showed up when it suited him, a dad who could do something worthy of a sentence next week and not shock a soul. With a mom who loved him but couldn’t seem to get her life on track. So many strikes against him, yet he wouldn’t even realize what they were for another eight or ten years.

  “What do you think it was, that kept you from screwing up?” I asked Kelly. “Both your father figures were lousy, but you ended up a pretty good guy.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t turn into either of those men.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Was it your mom, who kept you on the straight and narrow?”

  He shook his head. “She was real weak. My dad—my stepdad—beat her down. Sometimes physically, mostly mentally. If anybody kept me straight, it was my grandfather, but I only got to see him a few times a year. And I never turned into him. He lived out in the boonies, and as fun as it was, staying with him and fishing and hunting and all that shit, it was like visiting another universe. Trying to live his life would’ve been like a junkyard dog trying to go off and live on a farm. All happy, frolicking in the meadow with butterflies, when all I wanted was a fight.”