by Paula Cox
He didn’t waste time with gentleness. He circled her clit with his tongue as his fingers spread her open, fucking her mercilessly. She closed her eyes and imagined the room he’d given her, imagined being bound, and found that it pushed her harder towards the edge. She didn’t know why, and at this moment, she had no interest in analyzing it; she just wanted more. More than she had, more than she’d thought she could have. She wanted his fingers and his mouth, and him fucking her.
When one finger was so soaking wet that it could make a delicate, careful path inside her ass, she let it, groaning deeply at the feeling of incredible fullness that tore through her as he pumped into her more gently now. But the slower speed didn’t make it any less extraordinary as he slid another finger into her pussy, stretching her wide and pressing hard into the walls of her cunt, searching out the places that made her swear and buck for him.
When she came, it was fast and blinding, stars and explosions all through her body, leaving her biting back the grunting screams that threatened to escape. He pressed the flat of his tongue against her clit, gently easing her through the waves of pleasure until oversensitivity roared in and she had to gently swat him away. She caught her fists in the shoulders of his shirt and hauled him up beside her, moving easily into his lap and kissing him. He tasted like her, and like him, and like them. The combination made her feel dizzy with something more tangible than delight.
“Fuck me,” she murmured.
He shook his head. “It’s okay.”
“I know it is,” she said, kissing him again. “I know you’re fine, and you’re good with it, and you did this for me, and whatever else is in your head, but I’m asking you, unless you really and truly do not want to, do this for me as well.”
There was a moment where something delicate hung in the balance, and then he let go of his restraint, and his hands were hot on her body again. He lifted her again, swinging her into his arms and moving quickly through the small hallway to his bedroom. Her bare ass felt odd hanging down, but she could hardly care; she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his pulse until he growled and tossed her on the bed. She yanked her shirt off over her head, hearing a seam make an ugly sound that she’d have to investigate later — but right now, the only thing she cared about was getting him as close as possible.
Gunner stripped off his own shirt and pants in record time, and the way he plunged onto the bed with her made her think that he would take her almost viciously, but instead, everything slowed down to a glacial pace. His mouth moved over her body, stopping at her nipples, her neck, her earlobes. He kissed her while he teased the head of his cock over her still sensitive pussy. He nestling himself in the cleft of her lips and dragged himself over her flesh, slick and almost painful, and she begged him to move faster, to bury himself in her. He wouldn’t give her — or him — the satisfaction, it seemed, and he moved against her as slowly as he wanted to.
“Is this what you want?” he asked after an eternity.
“Yes,” she whispered. Her voice was gone, too shaken to be loud, too full of pleasure and desire to be anything other than needy.
He slid into her, tip to hilt, in one smooth motion that left them both shuddering. He slipped his hand under her hips, pulling her just a little closer to him so that she could take just a little bit more of him.
“Like this?” he asked.
“Faster,” she replied, trying to move her hips to urge him on. His grip was too tight, keeping her too still, pierced into place by the length of him, the delicious press of him.
He leaned down, locking her mouth against his in a searing kiss that twisted up her belly and made her buck against him, but still, he kept up the same steady, rocking rhythm.
“No,” he said. “You told me to do this, you don’t get to choose how it happens. I can stop, or I can keep going, but this is how I want to be inside of you, Lola. I want to be delicate. I want to be dependable.” She could see the moment where his breath caught in his throat, and he had to close his eyes tightly before he could open them and proceed. “I want to be yours.”
Something flared through her, not lust or an orgasm, something more emotionally intense and deeply powerful. She matched her movements to his, trusting him as he dragged his cock over the places deep inside of her that needed a release. When it was close, she slipped a hand between them, idly flicking at her clit a few more times. That, more than anything else, seemed to finally break his reserve. He didn’t speed up so much as each thrust became more urgent, more demanding. He slapped into her harder, pulled out more deliberately, and slid home again with the incredible power of gravity. Her orgasm broke over her just a moment after his started, and their cries twisted up together as he finally, delightfully, collapsed over her, pinning her to the bed with the solidity of his weight.
***
She dozed for a little while. When her eyes opened again, Gunner was actually next to her, his head pillowed on his arm, his gaze focused firmly on her face.
“Hi,” she said quietly, stretching carefully. Her thigh brushed against his hip, and she wanted him all over again, even as tired and sore as she was. When her hands smoothed over his belly, though, he caught them gently, bringing them up to his mouth and pressing a light kiss against her knuckles.
“We need to talk some more,” he said.
“Okay,” she replied. It was interesting, being naked in someone else’s bed. That hadn’t happened in a while. Plenty of dalliances; not so many cuddles. She tried to relax into and wrap herself up in the sensation, enjoying the flow of it over her skin. It was nice. Comfortable. Safe.
The idea of being safe with this brute of a man seemed so counter-intuitive that it almost made her afraid. How could she possibly be willing to daydream about such a thing? Yet here she was. Feeling safe. She wasn’t yet ready to say that she was throwing away all the respectability and privilege she’d worked for, but whether the moment was fleeting or not, it felt like something deep and powerful for now. She wasn’t ready to walk away from that feeling either.
“What did you find when you got back to your house?” he asked.
It was the question she’d been dreading.
“He’d been there,” she said, thinking that if she just said it, all at once, maybe it would be easier. “The man who kidnapped me. He had been there. He took Grace’s backpack. I guess because I told him her medicine was in there.”
“Did he touch anything else?”
“Not that I could see,” Lola said. “I thought it was okay, and I tried to go to sleep, but I just couldn’t do it. So, I came here.” His face was still and quiet, and she didn’t like that. Shouldn’t he be comforting her or reassuring her that she had been safe? Wasn’t there something he was supposed to be doing?
“You shouldn’t have stayed there,” he said. “What if something had happened to you? What if he’d been waiting for you? You should’ve called me. I would’ve come and gotten you.”
She shook her head firmly. “Are you kidding? You were asleep on your feet when you left here. I didn’t think there was a chance of you making it back to my place without hurting yourself. And honestly? You were so quick to leave, I wasn’t sure you’d pick up your phone if I did call.”
He winced visibly, and she tried not to be frustrated. It was the truth, she reminded herself. There hadn’t seemed to be any point at all in letting him know what was going on. She’d only left the house and driven to his when she hadn’t been able to get a hold of Cassidy.
He seemed to brush away the conversation with a move of his hand. “We’ll argue about that later,” he said, and it was adorable how he assumed there would be a later. She didn’t correct him, however. “Tell me everything you can think of about the car. The man. All of it.”
Lola tried not to sigh. He’d done this twice before he’d been willing to leave her as well. She turned all the details over in her mind — and at the very end, something finally sparked. It had been so strange at the time, but then
so much had happened, so she hadn’t thought to mention it. “He had a bullet, hanging from his rearview mirror. Just the casing, and on the butt end, there was a star scratched into it. Like snipers do in movies. To mark their kills or whatever.”
Gunner nodded. “Okay. That doesn’t mean anything to me, but it gives me some ideas about who we should call, and where we should be asking questions.” And then he went completely still. “No, wait,” he said, and she did. Because his silence, after all, didn’t give her much of a choice. “On Billy’s chest,” he said, his voice a low and terrified rumble, a combination that Lola did not enjoy at all. Horse said there was a carving there. Of a star. I—do you think?”
“Yeah,” Lola said, torn between running from the room and snuggling into him closer and asking for protection. “Yeah. I think the same man killed Billy and kidnapped me.”
“But why? You don’t know anything about Billy Calhoun, and if someone were trying to get me, grabbing Billy would be a terrible play. What the hell is even happening here?”
Lola opened her mouth to say something else, but Gunner shook his head. “No,” he said. “No. Here’s the thing. We’re both fucking exhausted. Too much is happening, and way too fast. We need more information, but we need it to be good, reliable information. So, I’m going to text this to Horse, and then you and I are going to get some sleep. Because we need to be able to help my little girl when we know what we’re doing, but us standing around with our thumbs up our asses isn’t going to help her, it isn’t going to help us, and it’s not going to help Horse find her.”
It hurt so much to do it, but Lola nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Good,” he said. He picked his phone off the table and tapped in a message, then set it down on the bureau again. He laid back on the pillow, opening his arms wide to her. “C’mere.”
“Are you sure you trust me near that power tool of yours?” she asked, but she settled into his arms without any objection. He was semi-erect against her belly, but not insistently hard. It was both a relief and a shame, all at the same time. She was exhausted, but her body craved him in a way that continued to surprise her.
“If you behave yourself, I’ll behave myself,” he said, but his hips shifted against her stomach, and she felt him tense just a little bit more.
“One more for the road?”
“Your wish is my command,” he said, and she honestly thought he might just slide right inside of her; she was honestly wet enough, and he was coming to attention at a shocking pace. But instead, he put a hand on her hip and turned her over, pressing her down into the mattress as he slid behind her. “Tell me what you want.”
Chapter Nineteen
In the morning, Gunner let Lola get into the shower and turn on the water before he followed her into the room. There was another quickie while she was pressed up against the shower wall, him kneading her breasts and her fingering her clit until she clenched around him, making him blow ferociously inside of her. And then they cleaned up, giggling at each other like everything was just fine.
He loved it, and he hated it, all at once. He couldn’t shake that moment when he’d left her at her apartment, and it had seemed like he would never see her again. How he’d felt that, sitting with that, aching for her, wanting her so very much.
He traded a few messages with Horse, who said that there wasn’t anything yet, but he was still running down leads. They set up a time to meet at the clubhouse that afternoon.
“I need to go check on Laurel,” he said after some time had passed.
“Okay,” Lola replied, and her calm gaze settled the question of whether or not she was coming with him. They took his bike, and she slid behind him like an old pro. They hadn’t talked about it at all in their cheerful banter that morning. What she expected from him. What she wanted, besides his physical presence. What was going to happen next.
He tried to push all of those worrying thoughts out of his mind. She felt sweet and right behind him, her thighs tight around his, her arms wrapped around his middle. That was all that mattered right now.
Sue was gone when they got to Laurel’s. His sister-in-law was curled up on the couch, looking small and fragile, tucked up in blankets. Yesterday, she had the fury of someone who needed to stay alive; today, he could see the wounds the entire situation had inflicted on her. The dark circles under her eyes and the puffiness of her eyelids told him plenty about how she was doing. She had been crying; she hadn’t slept well. But she was here. She was alive. That was a start.
“Hey,” he said after she let them in, then retreated back to her small nest. “How’re you holding up?”
“Sue went out for coffee and bagels,” Laurel replied. “She said she was going to get a bunch of things. I’m sure there will be plenty for you two as well.” There was a quick, momentary pause, and then she asked the question that Gunner had known she was going to ask, and that still tore him up inside. “Gunner, where’s my baby girl? How did you fuck this up so badly?”
Even though he was prepared for it, he flinched back. “Laurel, I—”
“No,” she said. There wasn’t any anger in her tone, which seemed strange. God knew he was furious with himself. Why shouldn’t she hate him too?
“Just tell me what’s happening. What are you doing to find her?”
He sagged into one of the chairs opposite her perch on the couch. After a moment, Lola sat down in the matching chair, but she stayed perched, instead of relaxing into the chair’s embrace.
“We’re running down every lead we possibly can. Horse is on it. He thinks he might have something for me this afternoon. But he wants to know everything that you can remember about what happened.”
Laurel was quiet for a long moment, and then she shook her head gently. “I don’t know, Gunn. They hit my car, took me while I was on the phone with you. They drugged me, kept me drugged. I didn’t have my meds, and my brain was zapping out every other second. I don’t remember much of it.”
“But it was a they? More than one person?”
She was quiet for a minute, then nodded. “Yes. Two. Both big, strong. One of them picked me up and tossed me in a car, the other got into my car. What happened to my car?”
“They found it on the side of the road, concealed in some underbrush. Keys still in it. Horse has it at the garage—I’ll bring it around for you later.”
They all sat in silence, and Lola was finally settling back in the chair when Laurel spoke again. “You just have to get her back, Gunner. I know she’s yours, really, but I need her back.”
The smile felt like it would crack his mouth, but he knew she needed to see it. “Laurel. She’s yours. She’s always been yours, just like she was Sam’s, and just like she’s mine. You’ve been with her more than I have. Don’t knock that. We’ll get her back.”
“You just better,” she replied, and yes. There was the anger. He needed it, needed it to fuel him and push him forward. He would have thanked her if he thought she would be all right with that.
Chapter Twenty
“And what about you?” Laurel’s eyes turned to Lola, and she made herself smile. “How did Gunner get you involved in this whole mess?”
“I was at the school when Grace was taken. I’ve been trying to help him any way I can.” It was easier to skip over the part where he compelled her to come along with him, and especially easier to skip over the part where they’d made out in the bathroom just down the hall. Where she’d offered to masturbate while he watched in his classic muscle car. And how she still hadn’t let go of that fantasy.
“I know that — you told me back at the warehouse. But why are you here? What are you doing to help him?” Laurel raised her eyebrows and waited. There was a looseness to her that seemed familiar. Based on the prescriptions she’d seen in the woman’s medicine cabinet the previous day, that seemed much better than the alternative. Lola could own that part of the reason she’d turned up on Gunner’s doorstep the previous night, was that if she didn’t have some kin
d of release, she would have gone down a very unhealthy road as the stress and fear of the day caught up with her system. Sex with a man she barely knew had been the least bad of some very bad options. She was glad Laurel was choosing a healthier way to manage this experience.
That said, her question was awkward as hell. Gunner had explained Laurel as Grace’s aunt, but in every way that mattered, she was clearly a mother to the child. Hell, Lola hadn’t even known that Grace wasn’t Laurel’s daughter until Gunner explained it. So, she wasn’t sure how to say that she found the man incredibly intriguing and that she wasn’t ready to back away. That she wanted to know that Grace was safe, and it wasn’t just about feeling like she had a responsibility as a teacher. That she was invested now, in a way she wouldn’t have been otherwise.
“I can’t give up now,” she finally said. She didn’t know what else to say.
Laurel nodded as if the words said more than she’d expected or more than Lola had noticed. “My sister was a good girl who got involved with a bad boy,” she said, shooting a glance over at Gunner. Gunner didn’t rise to the bait, and Lola hardly had enough evidence to contradict her. “She died in a car accident that no one thinks was an accident except for the police. And now, someone comes for me, for Grace? It’s too much of a coincidence.”