This Wicked Rush

by Jessie Evans

  I am above it all, and Caitlin is right there with me.

  Our lips meet in a bruising kiss and her tongue spears into my mouth and her taste floods through me. Her legs wrap around my hips and pull me closer, close enough for me to feel the wet core of her against my stomach and realize shifting up a few inches would put me inside her. I shift the other way, instead, kissing my way down her throat, where her pulse beats the same frantic rhythm as my own. I press kisses to her shoulder—one for each perfect freckle—before moving lower and taking her nipple in my mouth.

  I want to wait, I want to kiss her sinfully soft breast, trace the place beneath, where breast meets ribs with my tongue, torment her until she begs, but I don’t have the control. Not tonight, when we’ve done what we’ve done, and she was so perfect, like she was born to do these wicked, wonderful things with me.

  All these wonderful things, and what’s happening here in this bed the most wonderful of all.

  “Gabe.” She fists her hands in my hair, pulling me closer to her breast as I tease her taut nipple between my tongue and the roof of my mouth, trapping her there, holding her captive until she groans and her nails dig into my scalp hard enough to sting.

  “Gentle,” I whisper against her hot flesh before transferring my attention to her other breast, but I don’t really want her to be gentle.

  I want to drive her crazy. I want her feral with lust for me. I want to feel her nails breaking my skin and her teeth digging into my bicep as I slam inside her.

  I flick my tongue across her right nipple, while capturing the recently abandoned left nipple in my hand, rolling it between my finger and thumb. I’m so hard my cock pulses with an angry heartbeat of its own, but I force myself to wait. I wait until she’s writhing beneath me, until her nails are raking down my back and her hips are bucking into my ribs and she’s cussing me in a frantic, breathy voice that is so fucking sexy I’m pretty sure I could come just by listening to her, but I don’t want to come anywhere but in her pussy, that sweet, slick, hot pussy that I know is going to be the best place I’ve ever been.

  “Fuck, Gabe,” she says, with a moan that becomes a whimper of pain. “Please! Fucking please, you piece of shit.”

  I smile against her breast before I trap her nipple and bite down hard enough to make her yip. “You want me to fuck you?” I ask, surging back over her slim form, crushing her mouth with a kiss before she can answer.

  “Fuck yes,” she says, fighting to get the words out as we kiss hard enough for me to feel her teeth through our lips. “Yes!”

  I reach down to the foot of the bed, ripping open the condom and sheathing myself in seconds, and then I’m on top of her again, her soft skin hot against mine, her arms tangling around my neck and her legs locking around my waist as I position myself and drive inside her with one fierce thrust.

  She is even hotter and tighter than I’d imagined she’d be, like a fist gripping my cock so tight I see black stars bursting at the edge of my vision.

  She cries out—a sound that is more pain than pleasure—and stiffens against me. I feel her thigh muscles clench on either side of mine, and still inside her, forcing myself to resist the urge to start pumping, realizing too late that Caitlin is even more of a contradiction than I’d assumed.

  “Shit,” I curse, biting my lip as I trap her head between my hands and stare down into her eyes, not surprised to see the lust from a moment before replaced by a furrowed brow and lips pressed tight together. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?” she asks, her voice strung as tight as the rest of her.

  “That you were a virgin.”

  “I told you I don’t date,” she says, wincing. “I thought you knew.”

  “How the fuck would I know, Caitlin?” I ask, anger at myself for hurting her creeping into my tone. “Virgins don’t act the way you act. Virgins don’t finger themselves in your car when you tell them to, or carry on a fucking conversation while you’re staring at their pussy, or—”

  “So what? I’m supposed to act shy and awkward and ashamed of my body? Just because other girls do?” she asks, eyes flashing. “Well, sorry, but I’m not like that. And I’m only a virgin because I’ve never had the time to get around to getting rid of it.”

  “You make your virginity sound like an old couch.”

  “Well, yeah, it means about that much to me,” she snaps, shoving at my chest. “But I’m sorry fucking a virgin is such a pain in your ass.”

  “It’s not a—”

  “Get off me,” she says, shoving harder.

  “Wait.” I trap her wrists in my hands, pressing her arms into the mattress above her head before adding in a softer voice, “You’re not a pain in my ass. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Caitlin’s breath shudders out. “Well, you did. You made me feel like an idiot.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m just…I didn’t want to hurt you. If I’d known, I would have taken things more slowly. I don’t…I don’t ever want to hurt you.”

  The frown remains on her face, but the tension slowly leaks out of her arms. “You didn’t hurt me.”

  “Liar,” I say, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

  “Okay, it hurt at first, but now…it’s not so bad.”

  “Not so bad isn’t the way I want you to remember our first time.” I kiss her other cheek and the tip of her nose before bringing my lips to hers.

  I part her lips, apologizing with every deep, deliberate stroke of my tongue against hers, knowing there are better ways to make up than with words. I kiss her until her breath comes faster and her tongue swirls hungrily through my mouth and my softening erection surges back to life. But I don’t begin to move. I stay buried and still inside her, kissing her until she squirms her wrists free and brings her hands back to my shoulders, pulling me closer as her fingers thread into my hair. I kiss her until her thighs finally begin to relax and only then do I bring my hand back to her breast, kneading the soft flesh before brushing my thumbs across her nipple.

  She sighs into my mouth and arches her back. I follow her cue and intensify my attention, teasing and rolling and pinching first one nipple and then the other, until her hips begin to roll in little circles and I reach down, cupping one ass cheek in each hand, shifting the angle of penetration until my pubic bone presses against her clit.

  Her gasp as her next hip circle provides friction confirms we’ve found the sweet spot. I circle my hips, nudging at her clit with thrusts so shallow my cock barely moves inside her tight, slick sheath. My balls ache and my stomach clenches with the need to pull back and drive inside her, again and again until I explode, but this isn’t about me. Not yet, not until Caitlin comes.

  I drop my lips to her breast, pulling her nipple into the warmth of my mouth, flicking my tongue across her tip as I continue to rock gently against her and her breath comes faster and her fingers dig into my bare shoulders.

  “God, Gabe,” she pants, back arching, legs spreading wider, meeting each of my thrusts with increasingly desperate thrusts of her own. “God…I can’t…this feels….”

  “Good?” I smother her response with another kiss, blood pulsing faster as she moans into my mouth and reaches down, digging her nails into my ass.

  “So good, so good,” she chants, breath puffing against my wet lips. “God, Gabe, God…I think I’m…I think…”

  “Come for me, baby,” I say, fighting for control as our tempo grows more frantic and I feel her inner walls tightening around me. “God, I want to feel you come on my cock, Caitlin.”

  “Yes,” she says. “Yes!”

  She cries out, a sound I echo as her pussy grips me tight, her orgasm rippling through her with sharp waves I can feel massaging the aching length of me until my vision blurs and every bit of blood in my body surges to the eight inches buried inside her and there is no more holding back, no more control.

  I pull out to the end of her and surge back in, thrusting in and out of her sweet pussy that is so wet and hot
and tight and perfect. Perfect. Like her, like the way she fits against me, like the way she makes me feel like there is finally someone in the world who understands.

  And then her hands are on my face and she’s pulling me down for another kiss as she wraps her legs around my hips, pulling me deeper with every thrust. I pump into her, faster, faster, until there is nothing but the sound of our hungry bodies pounding against each other and our moans and sighs as we kiss and lick and bite, fighting our way toward the end of this, the moment when there will be nothing but pleasure, nothing but her and me and God…

  God….

  I call her name as I come, my orgasm rocketing through me until I can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t think of anything but this bliss. It’s so good, like this, with her, so much better than it’s ever been before. I am broken and made whole; I am shattered to pieces and put back together with her kiss. I need her, crave her, want to keep her here in this bed with me forever. This is more than a way to forget, so much more.

  And I am so very fucking screwed.

  By the time I collapse on top of her, catching my breath as my cock twitches with aftershocks of pleasure, I know I’ve made a horrible mistake. I curse, smothering the sound in the crook of Caitlin’s neck as her fingers drift up and down my sweat soaked back, hating myself. Hating how weak and pathetic and soft I am, soft as any dumb kid with his first crush when I thought I was so hard no one could ever crack the shell around my heart.

  I hadn’t even been sure I had a heart, at least not the way other people did. I thought I would always be on the outside of that type of emotion, too warped around the edges to fit with someone as perfectly as Caitlin and I fit.

  It’s horrible. And wonderful. And pointless, and suddenly I feel trapped in this room, smothered by the tender way she touches me.

  I have to get out. I have to be alone, find someplace where I can think.

  “Don’t,” she says, holding me to her when I try to pull away. “Stay.”

  “I can’t,” I say, throat so tight I can barely force out the words. “I told you at the beginning of this—I’m leaving at the end of the summer, even if I am your first. I just…I can’t. I won’t. This is going to end in two and a half months, no matter what happens.”

  She cups my face, urging me from her neck. I allow her to move me, but keep my gaze on the blank wall behind her head. I can feel her looking up at me, but I don’t look down. I can’t look her in the eye, not yet.

  “Gabe,” she says, a smile in her voice. “Gabe look at me.”

  I don’t, not until she laughs beneath her breath.

  “What’s so funny?” I glance down to find her smiling up at me.

  “Nothing,” she says, with a gentle shake of her head. “I just…you don’t have to worry. I told you, I wasn’t holding on to my virginity like some prize possession. I wasn’t saving it for someone special. It didn’t mean anything to me.”

  I scowl. Her words are exactly what I want to hear. So why do they hurt? Why do they make me want to storm out of here even more than I did before?

  “I love what we just did,” she says, cooling the anger building inside of me. “And I feel really close to you—now, and even before, when we were planning everything together, but…” She strokes a hand down my face, her touch calming and exciting at the same time. “But I don’t want anything more than the summer, either. I have too much going on in my life to get swept up in some big relationship…thing. I’m not going to make any demands. There won’t be any tears when we say goodbye.”

  She pauses, drawing in a breath as her fingertips trail across my ribs and around to my back, making me very aware that I’m still buried inside her and not feeling near as spent as I did a minute ago. “I just…I love this,” she continues. “I love spending time with you, and I have never felt more alive than I did tonight. I don’t want to give that up, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to run away because I’m falling for you.”

  “You’re not?” I ask, holding her gaze, keeping my expression neutral.

  “No,” she says, smiling again. “But I would really like to do this again. Soon. Like…really soon.”

  My lips curve despite myself. “You’re not in pain?”

  “A little, but…” She lifts a bare shoulder as her gaze falls to my chest. “But I kind of like it. It makes it feel more…real, if that makes any sense.”

  “It does.” Everything she says makes sense to me, she makes sense to me in a way no one else ever has.

  She may not be falling, but I am.

  Falling, falling, fallen.

  I’ve never been in love before, but I’m pretty sure this is what it feels like, at least for me. Like I’m drowning and never want to come up for air, like I live for her sweet, sexy smile. Like I would walk to the ends of the earth for just one more kiss, and I would rip apart anyone who dared to hurt her with my bare hands.

  I was worried I might hurt her—that she was getting as swept up in all this as I am—but she’s made of tougher stuff. Her head is still on straight and her eyes wide open. She’ll be fine, and I don’t really matter, not the way she does.

  So maybe it’s okay for me to love her, to cup this secret fire in my hands and see how big it can grow before it’s snuffed out at the summer’s end.

  “What are you thinking?” she asks.

  That I love you. That I’d do anything for you.

  Aloud, I say. “Let me get rid of this, and I’ll show you.”

  I dispose of the condom and return to the bed and in moments we’re tangled up in each other all over again. It’s slower this time, sweeter. We take our time, lingering over each kiss, each rush of breath over sweat-slicked skin, and by the time I push inside her a second time I am even more lost than I was before.

  For the first time, I understand what it feels like to make love. Not fuck, not screw, not have sex. I make love to Caitlin, am destroyed and reborn in her arms, and I fall asleep barely noticing the dull ache at the base of my skull.

  The ache that warns that there is no pleasure without pain, no love without hate, and no happiness without sacrifice.

  Chapter Eleven

  Five weeks later

  Caitlin

  May you have the hindsight to know where you've been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far. -Irish proverb

  I race around the side of the squat, concrete building, boots pounding against the asphalt as I sprint toward where Gabe leans against the chain link fence surrounding the storage facility. I push hard with everything in me, heart slamming against my ribs as I fight to put distance between me and the nasty surprise that was waiting for me in locker seventy-three.

  “Get back here!” The man’s shout comes from behind me, but not far behind.

  Not near far enough.

  I push harder, arms pumping up and down like pistons, becoming flashes of black that blur at the edges of my vision.

  “That’s my fucking money!” the man shouts. “Stop, you piece of shit!”

  I reach Gabe, grabbing a handful of his black shirt as I round the corner, dragging him along with me. “Run!” I gasp when he trips and nearly falls.

  I’m so out of breath I can barely form the word, but my lookout seems like he’s in worse shape. Gabe rights himself and stumbles toward the sidewalk, unsteady on his feet. Not skipping a beat, I hook my arm through his and pull him along beside me, past the entrance to another, low-rent storage facility, a shuttered bail bondsman’s shop, and on toward the residential part of this faded Charleston neighborhood.

  I wonder what’s wrong with him, but there’s no time to ask. The man who caught me breaking into his storage unit is nearing fifty, but he’s in good shape. A hell of a lot better shape than you’d expect a man to be in after spending twelve years in prison.

  Of course, according to the Federal Bureau of Prison’s Inmate Locator, Grant Harrison is still in prison, so…

  “Give me back my
money!” the very not-still-in-prison Harrison shouts. His footsteps slap the pavement behind me as he barrels down the middle of the deserted road, shouting that he was robbed, setting dogs to barking behind the rickety fence of a house on my left and my heart leaping up to lodge in my throat.

  I haul Gabe alongside me as I run, cutting down a dark side street before emerging on another main road. My lungs feel like they’re full of acid and a cramp knifes into my side, but just when I’m sure I can’t keep going with Gabe leaning even a third of his weight on my shoulders, he seems to recover.

  He stands up straight and picks up his pace, pulling ahead as we cut through the backyard of an abandoned house and sprint toward the sagging shed where we parked the van. By the time I slam into the passenger’s side, Gabe has the engine running and his foot on the pedal.

  He roars out of the shed, tires squealing as he shifts from reverse to drive and peals down Pinewood Place, headed toward the highway.

  “He’s not there. He didn’t see us pull out,” I pant as I turn to look out the rear glass, making sure Harrison isn’t going to be able to identify the make and model of the van.

  “Fuck,” Gabe curses.

  “And I got the money,” I add, ripping off my mask. “We’re good. We’re fine.”

  “We’re not fine.” Gabe yanks his mask off, tossing it to the floor at my feet as he takes a right on Ferncrest, then an immediate left, following the escape route we planned in advance. “Harrison is supposed to be in prison. How the fuck did he catch you breaking in?”

  I shake my head, still catching my breath as I turn back around and reach for my seatbelt with trembling hands. “I don’t know, but he’s obviously out, and sleeping in that storage unit. He woke up while I was going through the trunk.”

  Gabe curses again.