by Callie Hart
“How did you know?” I ask.
“I know how things work,” he says. “It’s my job to know.”
Awkwardly, I feel like this is exactly what he has done with me: taken one long, curious look at me and figured me out. The way he studies things, including people, is quite disturbing. He looks beyond the surface, beyond what you might want others to see, and he delves deeper. I’m not sure that I like that. There are parts of myself I’ve worked hard to keep hidden. Parts of me that should never see the light of day.
Rooke pushes the door open, standing back so I can enter first. He’s a gentleman, I’ll give him that. However, as soon as I make my way into the hallway, I’m shoved roughly up against the wall, my purse falling to the floor with a thud, and I’m quickly reassessing that thought. Rooke leans against me, hands on my hips, fingers grinding into my skin, his mouth so, so close to mine.
“Have you ever been fucked in this hallway?” he growls.
“I—no. I haven’t—”
“Are you on birth control?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He cups the side of my face in his palm, and then he’s kissing me. It’s not a subtle kiss. It’s a kiss wrought from fire and iron. It’s a savage kiss that steals my breath and a part of my soul right along with it. I open my mouth, allowing him in, and his tongue skates over mine, tasting me like before. I work my mouth against his, and he groans under his breath. “Goddamn, Sasha. You kiss like we’re already fucking,” he pants.
I could say the same of him. I don’t have the breath to do it, though. I’m winded by the intensity of the moment, of the way his hands feel as they travel all over my body. I can feel how turned on he is. His erection is pressed firmly up against my stomach, and the material of my dress isn’t very thick. I’ve never been so intimidated in all my life. He feels…big.
Rooke’s hands move smoothly down, until he’s kneading and squeezing at my breasts. I’m not wearing a bra, so it feels like his hands are already on me, working over my skin. He ducks down, kissing my jaw, sucking my ear lobe into his mouth, then going lower still, until he’s kissing my neck.
I’ve seen women in movies before losing their shit over a guy kissing their neck. I’ve always wondered what they were feeling. When Andrew thought to kiss my neck it was like bird pecks, hard and not particularly pleasant. With Rooke…
God…
My body feels like an electric current is running through it, sharp and furious. I can’t stop shivering. He bites down, fastening his teeth over my skin, and I moan, my entire body going limp.
“That’s it,” he pants. “That’s what I’ve been waiting for.” He lifts my skirt, and for three long seconds both his hands are on my thighs, running over the sheer material of my stockings. He looks down, apparently fascinated by the fact that I’m even wearing them, a faint look of surprise on his face, and then he’s tearing at them, fighting to unfasten them. He unclips the silk, and then drops to his knees in front of me.
Slowly, with deep concentration marking his forehead, he removes my pumps, left first, then right, and slides the stockings down my legs one at a time. I can’t seem to get my breathing under control. My hands won’t stop shaking. I can’t even—
He cuts off all thought when he pushes my thighs apart and buries his face between my legs.
“Oh…my…god.” I’m still wearing my panties, but that isn’t stopping Rooke from going to town. His teeth rip and pull at the expensive lace I’m wearing, and my head literally spins.
“You’re fucking amazing,” he growls. “Fuck, Sasha. You smell like…”
I cringe. I don’t want to smell like something. Smelling like anything is bad.
“You smell like sex,” he finishes. I want to object, to stop him there, but he’s gripped by something I can’t comprehend. His shirt strains across his back as he bends down lower, and then he’s pulling my panties aside, his fingers exploring me, rubbing, pushing inside…
“Fuck!”
“We’re getting to that part,” he growls. “Patience, pretty Sasha. Patience.”
I don’t want to be patient. Patience is for people who have sex every day and are bored with it. This is a whole new experience for me. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, for a guy to touch me, make me feel the way Rooke is making me feel, and waiting another second for him to be inside me is a goddamn crime.
He slides his fingers further inside me, curling them a little, and my whole body bucks as he hits an unfamiliar, sensitive spot that makes my toes curl. “Oh, shit! Holy fucking—” He stops what he’s doing, and I almost punch him in the head. He rips my underwear down my body, though, forcefully lifting my legs so he can toss the lace aside, and then he looks up at me, his mouth open slightly, his tongue wetting his bottom lip, a scandalous smile spreading across his face, and I’m stopped dead in my tracks. The man is sex. Pure, unadulterated, unfiltered sex. From the way he walks, to the way he wears his clothes, to the ink that marks his body… everything about Rooke Idlewild Blackheath screams, “FUCK ME!”
Slowly, and with the most unbelievable look in his eyes, he extends his tongue and traces it in a sweeping upward motion between my legs. It feels like I’ve been struck by lightning. I’m no longer myself. I’m no longer even inhabiting my own body. I feel like I’m floating on top of an endless, bottomless sea that stretches on and on forever in every direction. I feel like I have to stay absolutely still otherwise I’ll drown. His mouth works over me, his tongue flicking and licking at my clit in an expert way—he must have had an awful lot of practice at this—and my legs feel like they’re about to buckle out from underneath me. I need to steady myself. I need to hold onto something.
I bury my fingers into Rooke’s hair, shamelessly grinding myself into his mouth. He groans—not the sound of a guy simply enjoying something. The way he groans is the sound of someone completely lost to a moment of pleasure, so swept away by it that they don’t even realize they’re making any noise in the first place. My skin breaks out in goose bumps.
Rooke’s a huge guy. He’s built like he could take on Connor McGregor. His skin is a network of tattoos that say, “don’t mess with me.” When he opens his mouth to speak, a litany of arrogance and charm spills from his lips. I never gave myself permission to imagine a moment like this, I never in a million years imagined I’d let it happen—but if I had imagined it, I would have pictured his back pressed up against the wall with me on my knees, pleasuring him with my mouth. I would never have dreamed that he would be so focused on making me feel good.
And fuck do I feel good.
My dress is still bunched up around my hips. Rooke pushes it even higher, then slides his fingers back inside me again. He uses his tongue and his fingers at the same time, and I can’t keep myself together any longer. I need a release. I need to come or I’m going to rip the guy’s hair right out of his head.
I can feel it building…
I teeter on the brink of orgasm, balancing on the tight rope between madness and sanity. Rooke has to know I’m about to go spiraling into oblivion. He’s in tune with me already, able to sense just how close I am to coming. He fucks me with his fingers, stroking the inside of my pussy in a “come here” motion as he laves his tongue over me, and I’m done for.
It starts at the back of my neck: a tingling sensation, both hot and cold at the same time. The muscles in my arms and legs lock up, and the tingling spreads down between my shoulder blades, my lower back, over my buttocks and down into my legs. It hits me hard, turning inwards next, a moment of pure feeling where I am deaf and blind, completely lost. I think I scream. I think I sink to the floor. I think my back arches to painful degrees as Rooke continues to lick and stroke and fuck me with his fingers until I can’t take it anymore and I’m begging for him to stop.
Only he doesn’t stop. He carries on, until I feel another wave of intense pleasure building and building, sweeping over me like a tsunami. There is nothing left of me. I’m just particle
s and atoms, loose limbed and ruined. When I finally regain myself and open my eyes, I find myself laid out on my back on the floor, panting, and Rooke is on his knees between my legs, watching me with a very serious look on his face. He’s not cocky now. Not smiling in the slightest.
“What—what is it? Are you…okay?” I pant.
He closes his eyes and looks away for a second; when he faces me, he does smile, but it’s a strange, alien smile I haven’t seen him wear before. “No, I’m not okay,” he answers.
Oh god. Oh, holy shit, he hated going down on me. It was the worst experience of his life. A flood of shame rolls around in the pit of my stomach. I snatch hold of the hem of my dress, trying to yank it down my body, to cover myself and my humiliation, but Rooke grabs me by both wrists.
“Don’t even fucking think about it, Connor. Don’t ever pull that shit with me, okay?”
“What shit?”
“The whole, oh I hate my body bullshit. You’re phenomenal.”
“But you just said—”
“I said I wasn’t okay, and I’m not. I’m fucked. I am completely, one hundred percent fucked.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to have to quit my job. I’m not going to have time to work anymore. I just found my new favorite pastime, and I sense it’s not going to leave me much time for anything else. Jesus, Sasha… Making you come is fucking incredible. The way your head tipped back. The way your thighs tightened around my head. The way my name sounded when you were panting it like a motherfucking mantra. I’ve only heard it once, and I can’t live without it now. So yeah… I’m not okay.”
“Rooke—”
He shakes his head, cutting me off. “I don’t want to hear it. Not one word. You’re fucking beautiful. And we are doing this again. You know it and I know it. Don’t lie to yourself, and do not fucking lie to me.”
I was going to be self-deprecating. I was going to tell him I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to do something like this again. I close my mouth, feeling my cheeks burn. I feel like there’s a fire inside me, eating me alive, and it’s nowhere near as frightening a sensation as it should be. It feels exciting, more than anything else, and I’m on the brink of throwing myself onto the flames.
“Are you ready for what comes next?” Rooke asks.
“That depends,” I answer shakily. “That depends on what comes next.”
He straightens, kneeling properly. His fingers begin to nimbly unfasten his shirt, slipping the buttons through the holes, all the while staring at me with a dark, sinister look in his eyes. “I’m going to fuck you, and it’s going to change everything. Nothing will be the same again. The sun won’t brighten your days from here on out. I will. Gravity won’t keep your feet on the ground. I will. You won’t want to eat or sleep without me. Every second spent away from me will be a second wasted.”
Anger prickles at the base of my neck. I curl my hands into fists, ready to pound them against his chest as hard as I can. “Why?” I say quietly. “Fuck, Rooke. Why did you have to say that? How can you presume—”
“I’m not presuming anything. It’s just what comes next. And I know, because it’s a reciprocal thing, Sasha. It’s not just you taking this fucking stupid, crazy-ass next step. I will be too. I can feel it. I know what’s going to happen.” He shrugs his shirt from his shoulders, and the material slides from his body. His chest is solid, carved muscle, covered in intricate, masculine ink. His shoulders are broad; I imagine what it would feel like to cling to him as he pushes himself inside me and my eyes almost roll back in my head.
Rooke begins to unbuckle the belt at his waist. “I’m going to be right there with you. You’ll be my sun. My moon. My gravity, and my heart. I’m willing to let it happen. The question is, do you want that? Or…a better question. Do you want to risk not having that? This is real, Sasha. You feel that it is, I know you do. And just because it’s real doesn’t mean it isn’t scary. Doesn’t mean that we won’t argue or disagree. It just means that it can be fucking amazing if we let it.”
How can he talk like this? I don’t understand what he’s thinking. We barely know each other. There would be so many hurdles to overcome if we were to even think about being together in the way he’s describing. It wouldn’t just be hard. It would be next to impossible. Still…looking at him now, I can see how firmly he believes in what he’s saying. Steel flashes in his eyes. His jaw is clenched and locked, every inch of him solid and immoveable.
“I’ll ask you again, Sasha. Are you ready?”
My heart is in my throat. I don’t know how I can possibly agree to what he’s saying, but there’s this part of me that wants to throw caution to the wind. I can agree with him. What’s the worst that can happen? Things don’t work out and we go our separate ways? He moves on and starts fucking some twenty-one year old receptionist? That wouldn’t be the end of the world. Neither of us would die of a broken heart. It might… damn, it might even be fun.
I swallow, pushing down the voice of warning in the back of my head. “Okay. Yes. I’m ready. I’m ready for what comes next.” But even as I’m saying the words, I know how crazy I’m being. Rooke’s the most intense person I’ve ever met. There won’t be any walking away from him. There won’t be any moving on for either of us.
I wait for him to fall on me like some rabid animal—I can tell from the look in his eyes that he wants to—but he doesn’t. He climbs painfully slowly up my body, until he’s straddling me, his knees either side of my hips.
“You look like you’re afraid,” he whispers.
“I am.”
“You should be.” He leans down so slowly that I feel like I’m going to scream. His mouth gets closer and closer, and every long second that passes makes me want to reach up and grab him. I won’t give him the satisfaction, though. I just won’t. When he finally kisses me, I feel like I’m falling through the floor. He tastes like me. He actually tastes like me. I should be horrified, but I’m not. It’s such an intimate, personal thing. It actually turns me on.
I go to wind my arms around his neck, but he stops me. Raising my hands high above my head, he pins them both easily in one of his huge hands. “I’m sorry about your dress,” he growls.
“You’re sorry?”
He takes hold of the shoulder strap and rips it, tearing it away from my body. I gasp, a sound of shock echoing around the narrow hallway. He rips the other strap, too, ripping it away from my body in one swift, cruel movement that leaves me breathless and panting. He doesn’t stop there. In three quick tugs he removes the dress from me, splitting the material down the front, destroying it in seconds. I squirm underneath him, suddenly unsure of myself. He’s fucking crazy. I don’t know what to expect from him. He may have successfully figured me out in the most infuriating way, but I’ve yet to say the same of him. He’s so strange and bewildering that I’m left guessing at every turn.
Rooke leans back as far as he can without releasing my hands, and he looks down the length of my body. My breasts are exposed, and my panties are gone, so that I’m totally naked beneath him. He sucks in a sharp, pained sounding breath, groaning a little.
“If you could see what I’m seeing right now…” He trails off, his eyes feasting on my bare skin.
“I do see.”
“No, you don’t. You won’t let yourself. No woman really admits to herself how fucking perfect she is. If you did, you’d spend every waking moment of the day fingering your pussy in front of a mirror, completely in love with yourself.”
Just the mention of me masturbating makes me blush. People don’t talk about that kind of thing in such a matter-of-fact way. They just don’t. It’s not polite. Nothing about Rooke is polite, though. He sees that my cheeks are red and grins, tipping his head to one side. “Don’t deny it,” he whispers. “You touch yourself. You’d be touching yourself right now if I didn’t have you pinned.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, you would. Because I’d ask y
ou to. You’d do it to make me happy.”
I can’t fault his logic. Right now, I think I would do anything to make him happy, so long as he fucks me. I writhe underneath him, anxiety warring with my excitement when I realize just how trapped I am. I could kick and scream, shout and struggle, but there’s no way I’m getting out of this position unless Rooke allows it.
“Open your mouth, Sasha,” he demands.
I open up for him without even thinking. This is so new to me. If someone had told me even yesterday that I’d be allowing someone to command me like this, I would have thought they were insane. Where has this side of me been hiding all these years? Why did I not know that I would like this?
Rooke slides his index and middle finger into my mouth, probing behind my teeth, feeling around, opening my mouth wider. It’s invasive yet highly sexual. I gasp as he lays himself down on me, licking at my lips, tearing at my mouth with his teeth. He rocks his hips against me, and I can’t hold back. I angle my own hips up against him, creating the most intense friction, and I almost panic when I feel how hard he is again.
Scratch that. He’s beyond hard. His erection is rock solid. The moment I grind up against him, something inside him must snap. A deep, tense snarl begins to build in the back of his throat. He jumps to his feet, and then he’s undressing, toeing off his shoes, unfastening the button on his pants and kicking them wildly from his legs. I’m expecting underwear, but there’s nothing. He’s going commando. His cock springs free, and then I’m frozen in place, staring at him like a lunatic. He’s huge. Not, wow-you’d-really-better-get-me-ready-for-that-thing huge. I’m talking, you’re-going-to-put-me-in-the-hospital-with-that-thing huge. Internal damage huge. Rooke bends down and picks me up in his arms, as if I’m feather light, a massive shit-eating grin on his face.