by Kit Rocha
"Your dad." The meat pies smelled good, and she knew they'd taste good, too. Flaky crust stuffed with whatever meat and cheese and veggies the shopkeeper had been able to get her hands on. But Nessa could only break off the edges. "How old were you?"
"Young." Instead of sitting across from her, Ryder positioned his chair right beside hers. "I barely remember him. Sometimes I think I don't, not really. I only remember things people have told me."
She shifted her leg until her knee bumped his. "I get that. I remember my mom a little bit, but not my dad. But Pop told me so many stories about them, I kinda made my own memories."
"Something like that, yeah." He looked at her, his gaze skipping down to her mouth before returning to meet her eyes. "My father wanted to leave the sectors, head out past the communes to the mountains. He was going to build a cabin out there, away from all this."
"Yeah?" She'd seen her share of people living rough off the land on her way north from Texas. Some of them had looked so snug and cozy that she could imagine living that way, too—for a few days or a week or something. The idea of being away from network access and movies and music and what passed for civilization for too long made her skin itch with anticipated boredom.
He stared down at the untouched pie in front of him. "When this is all over, I'm going to do it. Go build that cabin."
His words from that afternoon drifted back to her. I don't have a choice but to move along. That's what he'd meant—when this war was done, if they came out the other side alive…
He was leaving.
Easy. No strings attached. It should have made all this feel safer, but instead it twisted an odd sort of sadness through her. She covered it by shoving aside her dinner and reaching for dessert. "Do you even know how to do that? You couldn't have gotten much experience living off the land in Sector Eight."
"I like to read." He shrugged. "And I've picked up a few things here and there."
She popped open the thin cardboard container to reveal golden-brown puffs of fried dough, some dusted with powdered sugar, some coated in a sugary-sweet syrup that probably wasn't real honey but was close enough.
She lifted one and bit into it, savoring the sweetness as she let go of that little stab of sadness. This was exactly what she needed, after all. A glorious fling with a firm expiration date. "I'm sure you'll be good at it, what with all your super-spy powers. We could drop you in the woods with a hatchet and come back a month later to find you with indoor plumbing and surround sound."
He smiled, that slow tilt at the corners of his mouth that she saw when she closed her eyes now, the one that made her pulse race. "Nice to know you believe in me."
"Of course I do." She popped the rest of the fried dough into her mouth and grasped for any hint of cool. "Except for your taste in liquor. But no one's perfect."
"I'll try to stay humble." His hand closed around her wrist. "May I?"
"May you—?" It was all she got out before he tugged gently, and then she knew exactly what was about to happen and could only wait, breathless, as anticipation stretched seconds into years.
Her pulse was pounding under his warm fingers before he got her hand anywhere close to his lips. His gaze caught hers. Held it. Their knees brushed under the table again, and she inhaled sharply as awareness danced over her skin.
She held her breath, and didn't let it out until he dragged his tongue over the pad of her thumb. All the air rushed out of her on a soft moan. God, he was barely even touching her, but the look in his eyes—
Like this was just the first taste. Like he'd lick her everywhere, all the places that were tight and throbbing. Like he'd take his time, and Nessa knew she was out of her depth and way out of her league, because he was still cleaning the sugar off her thumb with slow licks and she was ready to promise him damn near anything if he didn't stop.
But he did. Only instead of releasing her hand, he twined his fingers with hers and turned his attention back to his food.
It took her two unsteady breaths to decide not to murder him. It took two more for her to realize that hadn't been his big opening gambit in his seduction plan—he was just casually, accidentally smoldering at her.
Well maybe not accidentally. He knew what he was doing. She was the one flailing, because he wasn't playing by the rules of any game she'd ever learned.
"Do you really think I can make it?" he asked quietly.
"Out in the woods? Sure." Anyone trained to be creative and disciplined would have a shot, but it wasn't like he'd have to leave without resources. According to Lex, he could buy half the sectors. It was the truth, so it came easily. Except it wasn't the whole truth. "But it sounds…" Lonely.
"Crazy?"
"Quiet," she countered. "But I like to have people around to listen to me talk."
He seemed to consider that for a moment, then grinned again. "Gotta get through this war first, right?"
She couldn't help it. She laughed. And then she stopped trying to figure out the rules and did exactly what the fuck she wanted to do—because war. Fucking war. She could be gone tomorrow, her office as empty as those abandoned stalls, and she would have wasted these precious minutes.
She scooted her chair closer and leaned into him. He was warm all along her side, and tall enough that it didn't hurt her neck to rest her temple on his shoulder. The urge to climb into his lap and tear off his clothes hadn't abated, but the desire that came with it melted through her skin, settling deep inside as a gentler kind of heat.
"I don't want to think about the war," she said softly.
"Me neither." He moved, wrapping his arm around her and pressing her to his chest instead of his shoulder. She could hear his heartbeat—a little fast but steady, thumping beneath her cheek.
Expiration date. She had to keep that front and center if she wanted to survive this. Like a safety rope or a net, something to stop her from crashing too hard to earth. Because this was the part she craved, the part she'd never gotten from fucking guys she didn't really like, even if the sex was okay. She saw it every day around the compound, with every secret smile and casually exchanged caress. The O'Kanes practically oozed it from every pore—except with her. She got all the affection and none of the heat.
Having both was intoxicating.
She closed her eyes and inhaled. His soap was unfamiliar, something clean and woodsy, like he was already living out in some snug little cabin somewhere. She rubbed her cheek against the soft cotton of his T-shirt and shivered when his fingertips brushed her hip. "Distract me?"
"You haven't finished your dinner."
His voice was a low, velvety murmur that stroked inside her skin and made her squirm. "Ryder…"
"Shh." The couch was only steps away, but instead of leading her to it, he picked her up and carried her. He laid her out on the soft, supple leather, then stretched out over her, his hard heat a stunning counterpoint to the cool leather.
He blocked out the world like this. Breathing raggedly, she braced her hands on his shoulders, frustrated by the thin fabric keeping her from touching skin. She told herself to move, to gather the T-shirt in her fists and tear it over his head, but her body wouldn't obey her. Her fingers trembled.
She was nervous. Even though it wasn't her first time, even though she'd spent her late teens wandering blithely past orgies—
Ryder wasn't some overeager fighter boy whose ego she could crush with a few words. He wasn't harmless or inexperienced or powerless. He was strong, and smart, and in complete control of himself and this moment and everything that was about to happen. Even as the realization gave those butterflies in her stomach a fierce kick, it stirred something else.
Relief.
She might be nervous, but he wasn't. And he was going to make this so good.
His lips brushed hers, then returned for a fierce, deep kiss. Like the one from that afternoon, hot and hungry, licking past her lips and drowning her in the taste of him. Moaning, she slid her hands around him, and now her body was obeying her com
mands. Or maybe it was just instinct, the same instinct that had her rocking up against him as she jerked his shirt higher.
Her questing fingers found warm, smooth skin. She dug her nails into the small of his back, and he made a low, sharp noise in the back of his throat, one that vibrated through her mouth as he plunged his hands into her hair. His fingers tightened, clenching into fists, pulling at the strands until the sting of it flared through her like tiny electric shocks.
She wanted more. She wanted all of him. One leg was trapped against the couch, but she wrapped the other around his hips, dragging him closer. She moved her hands higher up his back, spreading her fingers wide over the flexing muscles. She could die happy like this, rocking up against him.
Then she shifted her hips. His dick ground over her clit just right, and she was going to die. Dead, flying apart, coming with two layers of denim still separating them.
He kept kissing her, his tongue gliding over hers, both distracting her from and adding to the tension he'd sparked. He rocked, not just his hips but his whole body, a gentle movement that lit up a thousand nerve endings all at once.
Arching her back rubbed her nipples against his chest, soothing some of the throbbing, but it pushed him away from that perfect pressure against her clit. She whimpered her frustration into his mouth and arched, trying to get him everywhere she needed him, all over her all at once. But he was unmovable—nothing stopped his slow, methodical rhythm.
No swift, fleeting death for her. The pressure was twisting and building, headed someplace glorious and inevitable.
Ryder caught her lower lip between his teeth and slipped one hand beneath her shirt, his fingers hot through the thin lace of her bra. The first stroke jolted through her, all sweetness and no sting. A little pain would have made the pleasure easier to take, but he just kept caressing and circling, relentlessly gentle.
Nessa tilted her head back, and there was the sting. Just the barest scrape of his teeth along her lip as he released it, but she shuddered. "God, why are we still dressed?"
He reached between them and tugged at the buckle of her belt. "You don't want to be, just say the word."
"What word?" She tried to peel his shirt off, but it caught on his arms, and he was like a rock—focused on his current task, not altering course for anything. She consoled herself with stroking the skin she could reach. "You can have all the words. Any word. Just get naked with me."
He stripped his shirt over his head. Her breath caught, and for a moment all she could do was stare. His deep-brown skin was decorated with breathtaking black ink, and she mentally apologized to Ace for disloyalty as she traced one wondering fingertip over the elaborate compass decorating his shoulder.
Then she followed his collarbone down to his chiseled, perfectly defined chest, and something different unfurled inside her. She'd watched with carnal appreciation as well-built men beat on each other in the cage each week, but Ryder was different.
She didn't just see the strength and power in the graceful flex of muscle beneath her hand. She saw the discipline, the control. A lifetime of self-denial. They'd started forging him into a weapon before he was old enough to know who he wanted to be. This perfect body must have taken endless work and training, hours upon hours of pushing life aside so he could be ready for his mission.
Nessa didn't know what to do with all the tenderness welling up inside her. It was smushy and overwhelming and not remotely conducive to getting her brains fucked out. So she shoved it back down and dragged her nails lightly over his chest and down the center of his body.
His abs rippled under her touch, and he let her tug at the warm leather of his belt before seizing her wrist. "Your turn."
Her nerves roared back as he guided her hand to her T-shirt. No one had ever turned her into a weapon or encouraged self-denial. Nessa had bitched and moaned her way out of every attempt at self-defense training until Dallas had gotten her a gun and told Bren to train her with it.
Most of the time, she felt just fine about her body. But she still squeezed her eyes shut as she wiggled her way out of her shirt and tossed it to the floor. Her hair fell around her shoulders and tickled her skin, and she pushed it back from her face to peek up at Ryder.
He stared down at her—chest heaving, hands flexing at his sides. "The bra, too."
A silky order, and Nessa played along. She had to arch to get one arm behind her, and the clasps seemed to have turned into labyrinthine puzzles. She blamed the heat of his gaze—she could feel it, like the tingling pressure when someone was almost touching you, but everywhere.
She cursed and finally got the bra undone, flinging it away with no regard for where it fell. Nothing mattered but getting his hands on her before she came out of her skin.
Ryder smiled, slow and hot, and quirked one eyebrow as he reached for his belt.
She didn't wait for the command this time. She groped for her own, tearing the leather open and popping open the button on her jeans. "Boots," she managed. "I need to take mine off."
"Relax." He drew her hands up over her head and pressed them to the leather cushions as he leaned over her. Another soft kiss, and he trailed his lips down to her jaw. "Just...relax."
His mouth slid down, and she burned wherever he touched her. The tender spot beneath her ear. The place where her neck met her shoulder. The hollow at the base of her throat. The spot to the left of her collarbone where she had a funny little cluster of freckles.
Her heart pounded. She tried to get a full breath. "I can't relax. You're trying to foreplay me to death."
His brows drew together. "I don't think that's a thing."
She wiggled her wrists in his grasp. When that didn't work, she rocked her hips up with a groan. "It is totally a thing. You'll see when I die."
He laughed softly and returned his attention to the spot just beneath her jaw. "If you die, I'll stand corrected."
The murmured words against her skin sent a shiver through her. Then he parted his lips and teased the spot with his tongue, and her toes curled in her boots.
It was relentless. It was inexplicable. No—that wasn't true. She'd been to enough parties to know some people delighted in taking teasing to extremes. She just hadn't expected Ryder, with all his stripped-down minimalism and efficiency, to be one of them.
He sure as hell wasn't being efficient now. She'd been wet forever, and if he worked into her now, she'd probably come on the second thrust. She'd never even gotten herself this cranked up with her own fingers, because she sure as hell wasn't into self-control.
Maybe she was missing out.
Ryder stroked his hands down her arms as he eased down, licking a path past her collarbone to the center of her chest. She tried to obey and relax into the pleasure. But there was so much, and she couldn't stop the way her body jolted when he grazed one of her nipples with his teeth.
She wanted to grip the back of his head to hold him there, but he still held her arms trapped, so she dug her head back against the couch and whimpered. He couldn't stop—the sudden ache blooming inside her was like a compulsion. "Ryder, please—"
"I'm here." He soothed the aching peak with his tongue as he shifted his weight, and his fingertips tickled down her stomach and eased into her open pants.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. She dropped her freed hands to his shoulders and clung to him, her attention swinging dizzily back and forth between the slick heat of his tongue circling her nipple and the slow progress of his fingers.
The word anticipation hadn't had meaning before this moment. It took hours and days and weeks for him to graze her clit, and any possible self-consciousness about just how wet she was vanished like smoke. So did the distraction of his tongue.
So did the world.
He groaned against her breast as his fingers slicked over her. Then he lifted his head, his jaw tight and his eyes blazing. "You're so fucking wet."
"Told you," she moaned, digging her nails into his shoulder. "Death by foreplay."
"You're
very much alive." His fingers pressed deeper. "I can feel your heart beating."
She shuddered and tried to shift her legs wider. But with her pants still on everything was tight and intense and impossible to escape. Her pulse pounding in her ears, she stared up at him. "Do it. Ruin all my rationalizations. Ruin me."
He leaned in for a kiss, and the moment his lips touched hers, his fingertip glided over her clit. Slow at first, just like his kiss, so gentle she shuddered through little shocks that only coaxed anticipation tighter.
Her hips twitched, the movement beyond her control, and the babbling started. Pleas, tripping over each other to roll off her tongue, and she could barely understand herself with the words muffled against his lips. But they echoed in her head, a litany rising with her need.
Please.
Right there, right there.
Yes. Yes yes yes. Yesyesyes—
His fingers pressed down firmer, and right where she needed them, and she wanted to scream her relief when that heat pulsing through her grew to a tight point and then snapped.
The orgasm hit her hard. It hit her deep. The first fire of it burned through her, that swift release she was so used to wrenching free with her own fingers. But everything was clenching now, and the fire didn't burn out. It swept out in another wave, clenching her fingers and curling her toes, until she was pretty sure she only had one word left.
Fuckfuckfuck.
Ryder didn't stop. He murmured words she couldn't quite hear—or maybe just couldn't understand—as he pushed her higher. Harder.
She was coming again. And still coming. Both at the same time, all tangled together. She panted against his cheek, riding his hand with no shame or control. She rode it until the sensitivity overwhelmed her, and her nerves fritzed out and she couldn't stop her hips from writhing away.
"I can't—" she gasped finally, limbs trembling, voice hoarse. "No more, no more."
His hand stilled. He was breathing almost as hard as she was, and the hot rush of every exhalation over her ear and neck added to the sensory overload. Gently, bit by bit, he pulled his hand away.
Nessa melted back into the couch as tiny aftershocks zipped through her. She had real flutters now. Actual physical flutters—and not in anyplace nearly as poetic as her heart. Her pussy was clenching around nothing, and the hollow emptiness was the only part of this moment that didn't feel perfect. Her body clearly had no fucking survival instincts, because it was ready for his cock. Craving it, even, tempting her with the satisfaction of having all that emptiness filled.