by Vivian Arend
She turned her head as he reached for his belt, and he finished undressing in silence, torn between gratitude and the perverse desire to make her turn around and watch him.
He dragged on a clean, dry pair of underwear, turned off the lamp, and stretched out on top of the covers, careful to keep his distance. He lay there, rigid and still, listening to her breathing.
After an endless silence, she wiggled closer, invading his space like she’d been doing from the start. She didn’t speak, didn’t reach for him. Just pressed her forehead to his shoulder, her breath skating down his arm.
The soft caress raised goose bumps on his skin, and Ford sighed as Mia’s breathing deepened and slowed. She’d been invading his space, all right, and the worst part was that he was starting to be okay with it.
CHAPTER SIX
The bed was so soft, Mia didn’t want to wake up.
She curled her toes against the silkiest sheets she’d ever felt and turned her face into the pillow. It still smelled like Ford—like his soap and whiskey and something sharp and delicious that might have been cologne or aftershave or her imagination.
Probably her imagination. But it was nice here, floating in warmth, decadence. She could summon the feel of his strong shoulder beneath her cheek, the heat of his skin. Maybe he’d be hot like that all over. Hot and hard, protecting her from the danger and roughness of the world.
Protecting her from himself, too. She’d woken just enough to feel the loss of him when he’d rolled stiffly from the bed, but she hadn’t protested. Knowing him, he would have stretched back out on the bed and resumed his vigil, refusing to relax or rest.
And if she’d thanked him, he would have grumbled about it.
The guilt of knowing he was sleeping on the couch with an injured leg finally drove her from her cocoon of blankets and pillows. His bedroom was sparse compared to the luxury of the bed, but she found a stack of clean clothes on top of the dresser and stole one of his T-shirts. It hung to mid-thigh and covered everything important, so she didn’t bother with pants that wouldn’t have fit her in any case.
Ford was still asleep in his office, squeezed awkwardly onto the couch. Guilt surged again, and she crept close enough to reach for the blanket that had slipped to his waist. A tattoo covered the left side of his chest—an old-fashioned motorcycle with a banner floating across the handlebars proclaiming his allegiance to the O’Kanes.
She pulled the covers up, and he shifted with a grunt, rolling onto his side before stiffening with another noise, this one far more like a groan.
He had to be in agony. She’d seen the stiffness caused by a few hours in his chair—what would a night on a too-small couch do to him? There were no rugs out here to soften the cool floor, but she’d knelt on equally unforgiving surfaces. She lowered herself beside the couch and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Ford? Why don’t we switch places?”
He flinched away from her touch. “I’m fine,” he growled.
His snarls would never scare her again, not after last night. “Of course you are,” she replied, putting bite in the words. “But I’m not going to lounge around in your bed while you hurt your leg out of stubborn pride. So I’ll just kneel here and shiver, and we can be miserable together.”
He moved fast, dragging her off the floor as he sat up. She landed astride his lap—astride his cock, which was hard beneath the thin layers of fabric separating them—and he locked both hands around her waist. “Don’t treat me like a child,” he rasped. “I’m far from helpless, and don’t you fucking forget it.”
She couldn’t drag in a full breath. His erection felt enormous. Unforgiving. Every soft, sleepy fantasy she’d ever had about him came roaring back, prickling over her skin and waking nerves gone numb from neglect.
But as good as he felt, she had to twist away. She recognized that soft ache, the heat building in her pussy. A few more wiggling rocks, and she’d be wet enough for him to feel it.
Embarrassment set her on fire as she braced both hands on his shoulders. “I never called you helpless. How can you even think that, when I’m the one who needs everything?”
“Because I see the way you look at me—like I’m some kind of harmless stray dog who only needs a little love.” His hands glided up to close around her upper arms, and he jerked her down close to his face. “You don’t even realize I could savage you with a bite.”
Maybe he was right, and she should be scared. Not melting, shivering.
Wanting.
“You’re wrong,” she whispered, and she had to steal his breath from the tiny space between them. “I’ve known you could savage me from the start. I’ve been bitten. I’m still bleeding.”
He arched up, grinding his hips against hers, and a tiny shudder wracked him. “You’re getting wet.”
The strained approval beneath the words killed her self-consciousness. She gasped as his next rock put pressure on her clit, and it was hard to focus now, to frame his face and force him to look at her.
“You’re not harmless,” she said softly, willing him to believe her. “I didn’t run to a stray, toothless mutt for protection. I ran to the snarly beast who grumbles and tolerates me, because I still believe you’d tear out the throat of anyone who came after me.”
He didn’t answer, just ran his right hand up the inside of her thigh. His skin burned, just as she’d known it would, but she hadn’t been prepared for the rasp of his work-roughened fingers, so different from her own.
Already dizzy from anticipation, she dropped her hands to the solid muscles of his shoulders and lifted her hips in quiet, shameless invitation. Finally, someone would touch her. Someone would want her.
His hand reached the top of her thigh, curling beneath her, brushing the curve of her ass and almost—almost—all the places she ached.
Then he stopped.
Shuddering, she dug her nails into his shoulders and tried to shift into his touch. But he held her like that, starving, needing, everything inside her twisted tight and ready. It was agonizing, it was torture—and it was making her wetter.
The trainers had pithy words about this, too. About games of power, and how they could exhilarate both parties.
Except Mia wasn’t playing. She was trembling. “Ford—Derek. Please. Please—”
He leaned in and slowly drew his tongue over the ridge of her collarbone, from her shoulder to the center of her chest.
Oh, God.
Her nipples tightened to aching points, and getting naked suddenly seemed like the most important thing in the world. She tangled her fingers in her stolen shirt, but Ford stopped her with a muttered warning. “Uh-uh. Don’t move.”
She froze.
His growl melted into an approving hum, and he used his free hand to guide the worn cotton over her head. It fell to the floor, and she struggled for equilibrium as Ford’s gaze raked over her, hot and intense.
He was nothing like Vaughn. He was the opposite—rough where Vaughn had been civilized, raw in all the ways Vaughn had been polished. But for a terrible moment those differences didn’t matter, because Vaughn had stared at her with intensity, too. Intensity laced with hunger, and so much self-loathing he couldn’t shoulder the burden.
So he’d heaped it on her shoulders, instead.
She’d escaped from Sector Two, but the weight of it still pressed down on her as Ford’s gaze swept back over her breasts and toward her face. “What do you see?” she whispered, barely daring to hope.
“Soft.” His breath caressed her skin. “Sweet.” He licked her again, tracing his tongue down the curve of one breast. “Beautiful.” He sucked her nipple into his mouth with a groan.
It was too much. She gasped and sank her fingers into his short hair, clutching at the back of his head as her own tipped back. Sharp, bright points of pleasure flared every time he sucked, and there was nothing lazy or easy about it.
She opened her mouth—to ask, plead, something—and his hand shifted, his fingers slipping through wet folds. He found her
clit with a firm, circling touch that never seemed to cease, only recede and come rushing back as each rough fingertip slid over her in turn.
“Oh—” It was all she could say, the same noise over and over again. She was gasping, panting, squirming on his fingers without grace or thought or any care to how awkward it would be the next time she had to sit down at his desk and try to concentrate on work and not how it felt to be riding his hand.
He wound a hand in her hair and tugged her head back. “Do it again.”
She wasn’t doing anything, and that realization should have terrified her. There was no thought in her now, no control. Every sound, every movement—it was pure impulse. Instinct and desire.
Truth.
The reckless danger of it only made everything hotter. He’d bared her throat, his fingers twisting tight enough in her hair to trip the line between pleasure and pain, and his words drifted back, a memory edged with new heat.
I could savage you with a bite.
She lifted her chin higher with a shaky moan, offering him the vulnerable line of her throat in silent trust.
He took it, closing his teeth on her skin with a groan. His fingers pushed deeper, curling into her as he pressed the heel of his palm against her clit.
Her body seized. The bite was delicious pain, the kind that burned into pleasure, but his fingers— She’d known it would sting, but his fingers were so broad and there were three of them, and she was so far past deception. She couldn’t bite back her hiss of pain or hide her flinch as she struggled to relax, to adjust—
It was his turn to freeze.
She took a careful breath and squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. I just—I need a second—”
“Shh.” He didn’t stop, only eased back until the blunt tip of one finger remained inside her. “Like this.”
The discomfort had already faded. One finger was enough to stretch gently as she rocked onto it, pushing him deeper, and she shuddered as that need built, slower this time. Fuller, somehow, and not only because she was hyperaware of the intimacy of taking him into her body.
Another finger joined that one as Ford licked the bitten spot on her neck and made another low noise. “That’s it, baby. Take it.”
Approving words, and God, she hadn’t realized how badly she needed it. Discomfort didn’t matter. She clutched at his hair and panted, willing her body to relax, to accept him, to welcome the way he stroked deep and filled her. “I’ll take more,” she whispered shakily. Begged. “Let me, for you.”
“Damn straight you will,” he growled. “When I give it to you. Say it, Mia.”
She lifted her head and met his eyes, and even though the world felt hazy, he was sharp. All perfect lines, strong jaw, and full lips. His brows lowered over intense, commanding eyes, and her heart pounded.
Her choice. This wasn’t Sector Two, and no man would ever own her again. It was her choice, and she’d already made it when she bared her throat to him. “Yes. I’ll take what you give to me.”
“When I give it to you.”
The pressure inside her was shifting toward discomfort again, but not from the size of his fingers. She wanted to rock and squirm against the heel of his hand until the achy tension snapped. It was torture to hold still like this, shaky and helpless as she stared at a release she couldn’t quite reach.
But that was the game, wasn’t it? Granting him power, trusting in the implicit promise that he’d give her something in return. That was the lie everything in Two was built on—the promise no man was expected to keep.
She wasn’t in Sector Two anymore.
Mia dropped her hands to his broad shoulders and splayed her fingers wide, struggling with the temptation to simply move and seek her own pleasure. “I’ll take what you give me,” she repeated softly, her voice only trembling a little. “When you give it to me.”
“Yes.” His fingers curled inside her, and he rotated his hand against her clit in slow circles of pressure, each one harder than the last, each one sparking along her nerves until she was on fire. “And I will, baby. I’ll fucking give it to you.”
“Oh—” she gasped, and that was all she got out before she flew apart.
Her body clenched. All of it, but nothing as fast and hard as her pussy, and even the throbbing pleasure couldn’t wipe away awareness of how exposed she was. He’d feel every shuddering pulse as she squeezed tight around his fingers, the proof that she wanted him.
Wanted more.
He continued to stroke her, slowing bit by bit, until she could think again. Then he pulled his hand away and settled it on her hip. “You’ve got a story, don’t you, Mia?”
Her limbs were liquid. She dropped her head to his shoulder, huddling close to all that warm skin. “Everyone has a story these days.”
“But yours is particularly interesting, I can tell.”
She wanted to play dumb, but it would have been another lie. A rebellious one, perhaps, but still deception. So she was blunt, instead. Crude. “Not really. Virgin whores are Sector Two’s most valuable commodity. Because that’s all that counts, right? Not what I know, not what I’ve done. Just whether or not some guy gets to be the first to shove his dick into me.”
“I guess,” he agreed quietly. “I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about Two.”
He hadn’t reacted with anger or distaste, and some of the tension eased from the knot that had formed between her shoulder blades. Turning her cheek to his chest, she lifted her other hand to trace his collarbone, and the fact that he allowed the idle caress relaxed her further.
She was safe here. As safe as anyone could be, and that made it easier to talk. “They handle most of Eden’s trade with other cities. That’s why it’s so nice there compared to the other sectors, and why we had so many extravagant things. We—they got the luxury in exchange for taking all the risks.”
“And why all their customs look so pretty—on the outside.”
Yes, Ford would understand the business advantages. “Orchids have the most intense training, but the girls are meant to be more than companionship. We’re hostesses. Entertainment. Assets.”
She hesitated, her fingertip poised at the base of his throat. He had stubble, a lot of it, and now she knew how it felt against her skin. The intoxicating rasp of it, the shivery sensation. He was still hard beneath her, and if she shifted just right, the ridge of his cock would grind tauntingly against her sensitive pussy.
Might as well tell him all of it. A man like Ford must already suspect, if he didn’t know outright. “And we’re...spies, I suppose. I had a patron, but my loyalty was never meant for him. I learned that before I knew anything else.”
Ford snorted. “No shit. It wouldn’t do Cerys any damn good to train up her girls and then let them go, not really.”
“Because you’re thinking about her like she’s a businessperson.” It was amazing how many men in Two didn’t, even though Cerys ruled the sector as surely as Dallas O’Kane held Sector Four. “They don’t think it’s odd that she’d spend years training women to sell to them. Because the men think they deserve us. That they’re entitled to us.”
“Then what they really deserve is to get their dumb asses spied on.” Ford tilted her head up with his finger under her chin. “Who was he? The man who thought he was entitled to you?”
“Vaughn Tyler.” Even the name tasted bitter, but she managed a wry smile. “It’s funny, in a way. He didn’t think virginity had anything to do with his dick, either. I wasn’t vapid and ignorant, so that meant I was filthy and used up before he ever touched me. Which is why he didn’t.”
“You know that’s bullshit, right?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “If I believed it, I’d still be there, letting him—” She ground her teeth together and jerked her gaze from his before her vulnerable defensiveness showed him everything. “I’m sorry. I know it’s bullshit. I do. But it was getting under my skin. Anything will, if you give it long enough.”
Ford nodded slowly. “Yeah, it wi
ll. Sometimes in ways you don’t even realize.”
It was true, and Ford was proof of it. It was like she was riddled with thorns that had been there so long she couldn’t feel them anymore, not until Ford brushed a sensitive spot and pulled one free. First the sting, then the giddy relief—
But it went both ways. He’d ground a few deeper, too, and would do it again if she kept hiding the things that hurt her. And one thorn was buried so deep, the thought of being free of it left her dizzy.
She wiggled back, careful not to put too much weight on his legs as she lifted her body from his and curled her fingers under the waistband of his underwear.
He locked his fingers around her wrist. “I wasn’t just waiting out my turn to get off.”
“I know,” she whispered, meeting his eyes. “I want—” Words failed her. She wanted something selfish, something impossible to explain without laying out the ugly truth and killing the moment. She’d have to tell him about those miserable trips to Vaughn’s office. The heavy smell of liquor. The shadows, everywhere except for the sad bit of carpet where she knelt, naked but for her pride.
Neither of them had enjoyed those nights. Oh, Vaughn had achieved physical release every time, his fist sliding over his cock, fast and furtive, his gaze jumping across her body with hunger and loathing. But he’d hated it. He’d blamed her for every agonizing second, from the first stirrings of his unwanted erection to the instant he spilled across his hand, furious at his own weakness.
So he’d vented it on her. Slut and whore and filthy temptress and a hundred boring variations that she’d done her best to tune out, letting them roll past her like meaningless sound. That was all they’d ever been—a pitiful man’s guilt and confusion, all because blaming her was easier than accepting himself.
They’d still gotten under her skin.
None of that was in Ford’s eyes now as he watched her, or in his voice as he let go of her wrist. “Okay. Just wanted you to know, that’s all.”