Loose Ends

by A. M. Hartnett

  Gritting her teeth, she couldn’t argue with his words, nor did she want to change a thing. He was just so damn good at working her over, and she found herself gasping and sobbing and laughing all at once.

  “Ride my cock,” he said in a grunt, and Sophie shuddered in his grip as he held her over him. His thrusts off the mattress where methodic, slow but firm strokes to give her just a few inches. His expression transformed into a mocking question. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Can’t you keep up?”

  Sophie growled out a curse and bucked, only to meet with infuriating resistance. She tried again with the same results, and then caught a smile teasing at the corner of his mouth.

  “Ah,” she said in a sigh, and fought against the urge to put everything she had into pinning him down and shutting his mouth with her body, but she wanted to play along with the devil inside.

  Sure enough, as she went still and gave him her weight, Ben let her sink down.

  “There we go,” he said, his approval clinging to her skin like the sweat at the small of her back, “nice and slow.”

  “You are just so mean,” she breathed out, but nonetheless did as he asked. If he had something to say, he kept it hidden behind that smile. Aside from the movement of his fingertips pressing into her, he remained still as she built the momentum.

  It proved to be a challenge. Though she wanted the sweet torture, she wanted Ben’s wild twin who had given so much so fast. She sought the middle ground and pressed her hands against his chest. Using him for leverage, she rocked back and forth.

  “Is this the ride you wanted?” she asked, hovering over him as only the fat head plugged her. She pursed her lips and let her hair spill between them. “A little of this?”

  She shunted back and forth, fucking only the tip, and watched him try and maintain his arrogant confidence--and lose. He closed his eyes and his brow creased, and as she rolled her hips around he grunted and tipped his head back.

  Victory charging through her veins, she grasped his wrist and pressed his fingers into the wet heat between her legs. “Oh, and a little of this, too.”

  “And a little more,” he said, and as he played with her clit he slipped his hand behind her. One sweep to wet his finger and he flashed a grin at her.

  Grinning, Sophie went forward and stilled long enough for him to crook his finger into her ass.

  “And a little more,” she whispered.

  He craned up enough to claim a hungry kiss, then raised his hips. “Don’t stop now.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Taking hold of his wrists, one in front of her and the other behind her, she rode him harder. As his name came sputtering through his teeth, gave as good as he had given earlier. She had no intentions of stopping to tease. Her virgin bed didn’t so much as peep as she bounced over him, or if it did both she and Ben drowned it out.

  The growing throb between her legs spread quickly. Looking down at Ben through the curtain of her air, she was struck not only by what he did to her, but by how ravenous he looked as he did it. Hips pumping beneath her to meet his thrusts, the hand between her legs pressed against her mons and the one behind her splayed against her ass, he triply worked her as he rode her into the stifling storm that closed in on them.

  She became so hot so suddenly that she felt driven out of her mind. She began to speak, nonsense spilling out on puffs and gasps until her climax tore her in half. Once more she tried to push his hand away from her clit, but he remained relentless and kept her coming, so overrun with pleasure that she could only sob while he pounded her from below.

  “Here it ...” he began, but the last of his exclamation vanished in the upsurge of his body beneath and inside of hers. Still taut in the violent wake of her climax, Sophie clung to him, making him her anchor as his final shallow thrusts finished him off.

  Holding her pose until the fever cooled and the drumming in her head became a dull thud, Sophie took one deep gulp of air after another, and then she shifted. Ben threw his arms out around him and heaved a great sigh as she claimed the crook of his arm for her own.

  “I’d just like to point out that I only offered to help you clean up,” he croaked, and earned himself a jab in the ribs. Sophie wiggled around and threw her arm across his damp chest, and snickered at his goofy expression.

  “Look, if you’re going to complain about my hospitality you can get the hell out.” She brushed his cheek. “I like your face.”

  Ben chuckled and folded her closer. “I like your face, too.”

  The moment was punctuated by a rumble from his stomach, to which hers promptly answered.

  Sophie looked up at him. “I don’t think I actually ate anything tonight. Did you?”

  “Do three chicken nuggets and a bottle of wine count?”

  “Not when there are leftovers. I’ll be right back.”

  After a quick stop to the bathroom, Sophie wrapped herself in her kimono and headed for the scene of the party’s carnage. She returned to the bedroom with a platter loaded with sweet and salty just as Ben emerged from the bathroom smelling like her hand soap.

  “I still can’t get over how good you look without your beard,” she said as she walked on her knees to the centre of the bed. “And, you know, without your clothes.”

  “So you’re the girl who eats dessert first?” he teased, joining her as she popped a spoonful of mousse in her mouth.

  She handed him his own spoon. “I’ve got no self control whatsoever.”

  “That much is obvious.” Settling on his side, Ben ran his hand along the back of her thigh. “It’s after midnight.”

  “Does that means you’re going to turn into a pumpkin? More mousse for me?”

  “I mean it’s Monday. Not to be compulsive, but you did say I could ask you out again on Monday.”

  She raised a brow and gathered another dollop of mousse, then offered it to him. “I can see how what just happened would send mixed messages.”

  “That was sex.”

  “Great sex.” She tipped the spoon into his mouth, and once he swallowed she chased the treat with a kiss.

  “Hmmm, it is great sex, isn’t it?” he said against her mouth. “Care to have a real divorce celebration tomorrow night?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Dinner at a clandestine hole in the wall and then some filthy, filthy sex in a cheap motel.”

  Watching him collect a mixture of desserts onto one spoon, Sophie felt a tickle go from between her shoulder blades before settling between her toes.

  I’m really doing this, aren’t I? she thought, and had to bite down on her tongue to keep from smiling. Dating my sleazy, irritating, conceited ... sexy as hell lawyer.

  She scooped up some cheesecake and offered it to him. “Make it my place and Chinese, and you’ve got a deal. Bring your warm fuzzies with you, and I’ll give you a chance--or two, or ten.”

  Chapter Seven

  Up until her phone trilled, Sophie’s brain was on food. Breakfast had been coffee and half a bagel, and that was hours ago. She would have barreled through an army of Orcs if they stood between her and a double cheeseburger, but with the old-fashioned ring muffled by the contents of her messenger bag, a different sort of hunger took hold.

  One o’clock. As always, right on schedule.

  She dug into her bag until the device vibrated against her palm, and couldn’t banish the stupid smile as she read the number on the screen.

  LAWYER MAN, the caller ID still read. She hadn’t changed it yet. Ben got a kick out of the moniker and so she’d left it.

  “You haven’t gone and hooked up with some random Avenger, have you? Because if you have, I might have to take my earrings off.”

  She laughed at his greeting and looked around the conference room. “Don’t be a jerk. I’m not surrounded by a bunch of stereotypical drooling nerds. You should have seen the ass on some zombie who asked for my autograph earlier.”

  “You know, you could just ask me if I’d dress up lik
e the undead. I’d do it. I’m up for all your kinks.”

  “You might live to regret saying that,” she said.

  It surprised her how happy she was to hear from him, though after checking her watch every fifteen minutes and suffering the burn of disappointment that time wasn’t moving faster should have told her how badly she was jonesing for contact from Ben.

  With her sigh, he clicked his tongue in her ear. “Tired?”

  Sophie shook her head, happy to let him think that she was simply wiped out and that he hadn’t just been the subject of a dreamy sigh.

  “A little. I’ve got the Blood Red Widow panel at four o’clock.”

  “Have you met the heartthrob yet?”

  “Ugh, no.”

  “It drives you crazy that Sym is being played by a hot Irishman, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t help it. He’s just so ugly in my head.”

  “You can’t put ugly on the cover of Entertainment Weekly,” he noted for the umpteenth time, and let out his own sigh.

  She had no such illusions that his was a dreamy sigh. His was pure exhaustion. In the week leading up to the conference, Ben could be found in three positions: hunched over his desk in his office, lump-liked on Sophie’s sofa, or mercilessly burning off his tension in her bed. Not that she complained about the last part, and intended to return the favor once her own life became complete chaos.

  “So I had breakfast this morning with Thomas N. Howell,” she told him. “He said that during his panel, if anyone suggests that his Battila world is actually our past or future, he’s going to fake a heart attack. I told him it’s not so unreasonable, since Avalon Daye’s series ended in the Garden of Eden, and that Wilson Hedley’s medieval wasteland was actually an apocalyptic future. He called me a whippersnapper and stormed off.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been more effective to just mock him about his weight?” he joked. “What time does your flight get in tomorrow.”

  “Late.” She echoed his growl in her head. Too late. It would be nearly three o’clock in the morning before she trundled into her condo, at which time she’d head for her bed like a sleep-seeking missile.

  “Why don’t I pick you up and tuck you in, and in the morning I’ll make you breakfast?”

  “Oooh, that would be tempting if I didn’t know your alarm went off at five-thirty.”

  “Vampire.”

  She sniggered. “You know what calling me names gets you.”

  “A slap on the ass, which always leads to something much more adventurous, which is why I call you names.” Another sigh, and she heard a creak in the background. “I’ve got to go. Text me when you’ve got a minute.”

  “Will do.”

  “And hey--I miss your face.”

  Sophie was able to hold in her giggle for a few seconds, but no longer. “I miss your face, too. Bye.”

  And just like that, she didn’t want to be here at the conference a minute longer. She wanted to be naked and thrown around her bed by her Lawyer Man.

  Admit it, she thought as she made her way through the sea of comic and movie characters and other miscellaneous geekdom, you went headfirst into more than just sex with Ben Croft.

  Now that she was in the thick of it, it didn’t seem like such a terrible idea. Quite the opposite. The sex was still the highlight, but there was also the droopy smile he gave her when he woke up, the way he hid himself in the spare bedroom to tell Kayla a bedtime story on FaceTime, and the way he’d dropped onto her sofa, a little rumpled and a little drunk after taking a client up on his offer for skybox seats at the NHL game.

  Oh, boy, did she ever like Ben Croft these days, and he knew it. She could tell. When they’d first meet, he’d give her a kiss on the neck and then hang back and watch her redden with a knowing smirk that he had gotten under her skin, then lean in for a real kiss once she had finished her routine to trying to act like her insides hadn’t turned to goo.

  And now, with a few hundred miles between them, she missed him like crazy.

  If it hadn’t been for the casting announcement for Blood Red Widow, she would have skipped the conference altogether. Her book signing had gone well, but she found herself wanting to retreat away from the buzz that the series was garnering. It wasn’t only her fans who were whipped up into a frenzy, but the media machine in general. The series was being produced by Declan Gunner, who had three award-winning series under his belt, and the network had been teasing all week that a big name actress had landed the role of Bess.

  Now that Blood Red Widow was reality instead of just proposal, Sophie was feeling the pressure. She was no longer the writer in a cardigan and her brand was no longer just hers alone to nurture. So far she had only done a handful of interviews, but now that some entertainment blog had named her on of their top 30 under 30, she was uncomfortably becoming a minor celebrity.

  Not that she minded the boost in her bank account all this promised, but overall she felt as though she was using up her energy quota for the year on this weekend.

  Her hunger back with a vengeance, Sophie decided to just head back to her room and order room service until she had to get a wiggle on it for four o’clock. This year she was actually staying in the hotel that was joined to the conference centre versus the ten minute trek to the Quality Inn last year, and so once she was out of the main room she beelined for the elevators.

  She had to lower her head to keep from guffawing as she was flanked by all thirteen of the dwarves from The Hobbit waiting for the same ride, which was made all the funnier by the fact that they towered over her. Once the doors opened and she stepped inside, they swarmed around her. The doors started to slide and a gloved hand came through to stop them, followed by a head wrapped in a leather mask.

  “Any room in here?”

  “I’ll take the next one,” Sophie volunteered, her amusement trumped by the thought of another elevator mishap. She doubted she’d be half as comforted by the presence of Thorin Oakenshield and his comrades as she had been by Ben.

  The warrior took another look inside, then stepped back. “Me, too.”

  “Suit yourself,” grumbled one of the dwarves, and scowled as the doors closed.

  The warrior at her side snorted. “You’d think they would have recruited a tall guy dressed as a wizard for context.”

  Sophie sniggered. “I think they lost their Bilbo, too.”

  She glanced sideways at the warrior, and started at the marks on his forearm--eight slashes in red on one, and seven on the other. He was dressed as her warrior, Sym.

  “You know, Sym only has five marks on his left arm,” she noted. “He hasn’t knocked off Lord Evernight or Shaela yet.”

  “That’s not what I’ve read,” he countered. “In the next book he surprises them while they’re in bed together and gets them both in one slash.”

  Sophie’s stomach flopped. He was right. Jesus Christ, that was exactly what she had sent to her editor a week ago. She seized with panic. Had her computer been hacked? After the bundle she dropped on private cloud service with enough security to ward off an attack from North Korea, if her book had been leaked to pirate sites she was going to sue the ass off of--

  Something sweet tickled her nose and stopped her meltdown in its tracks.

  Bubble gum.

  The warrior looked sideways at her, and Sophie punched him in the arm.

  “You son of a bitch.”

  Laughter muffled behind leather, Ben reached behind his head and unhooked the mask.

  “Beat on me a little more and I’ll get that black and blue battle-hewn warrior look.”

  “I never would have let you read a word if I had known you’d use it against me.”

  Sophie’s entire body sparked as he beamed his smile on her. The mask had left him red-faced with his hair sticking out, reminding her of how he looked in the moments after they’d come hard together.

  She stood on her toes, and he leaned down to peck her on the lips, then pulled her closer for a more familiar and welcome
cinch.

  “What are you doing here? What happened to the McMillans?”

  “Settled. The cheap old bastard was at risk of losing half his business if he didn’t give the wife what he wanted--not to mention the twenty-five year old with the tight ass who was pressing him for a ring on her finger. So once that was wrapped up, I figured I’d fly down.”

  “How did you get tickets?”

  “I’ve got people,” he said, and gestured for her to enter the elevator that just arrived. Sophie stepped inside, and was relieved when no one else entered. She leaned closer and slipped her hand behind him, tittering as the muscle beneath her palm flexed.

  “Have I told you how grateful I am that you’re a sporty guy? Sporty guys always have the best asses.”

  “I didn’t wear this so you’d objectify me, you know.”

  “Of course you did, and I’ll objectify you all I want. In fact, I’ve got it in my head to objectify you for at least an hour before I have to head down to my panel.” She enjoyed her handful for a moment longer, then slid away from him. “Thanks.”

  “For?”

  “Coming down here to keep me from losing my mind.”

  He pulled her against him, then said against her temple, “Is that what I’m doing here? I thought I was just supporting my favorite former client.”

  Spoken so tenderly that her heart pattered a little faster, Ben’s tone echoed the sentiment she had been feeling since their professional relationship turned personal.

  She looked up at him and matched his smile. “You spent five hours travel time to get here. I’d have to say you’re pretty dedicated to my well being.”

  “It makes sense, since you’ve been doing the same for me over the last couple of weeks.” He raised a brow. “Making any sort of impression on you?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  She couldn’t say it without rolling her eyes, which only made Ben laugh. He wrapped his other arm around her and gave her a glorious hug. “You’re going to make me work for it every damn time, aren’t you?”