by Nora Flite
When I was very young, my father never once in the picture, my mother had impressed upon me that I had to work hard. There was worth in making a name for yourself. Power in climbing the ladder of life.
Romance is a waste, she'd say. Love a pointless dream.
The only time she ever praised me was when I beat the odds. But god, that praise was worth it. It kept me going.
I did everything right. In the hallway, people milled, so I kept moving. I've never failed at anything I put my mind to.
Why did that success have to hurt so bad, now?
Around a corner, I spotted a stairwell. It was abandoned, the walls blocking the party until it was just a faint hum.
Breathing heavily, I swayed—almost fell down the steps. Calm down! Just sit, breathe. Settling on the top of the ledge, I squeezed the railing. My chin hung low, hair blinding me. The darkness was soothing.
Every time my heart beat, I saw his face in my mind's eye.
Stop!
My brain didn't give a shit if I begged. Even here, away from his presence, I was a prisoner. Pike was in my atoms. How could I ever tear him free?
I'm stuck with him for two more days. When I look at his smiling mouth, I'll know it was kissing... touching... other girls.
He didn't owe me anything. We weren't dating and I knew that. Why were emotions so complicated?
“Ellie?”
Inhaling violently, I wrenched around. Pike stood behind me, his shadow long in the yellow lights of the hall. No one was with him, but I still saw the after-images of those women, as if I'd stared at the sun too long.
Frowning gently, he took a step closer—then another. “Ellie, what's up? You okay?”
Fighting down the bile that had been filling me, I tried to speak. My voice came out tense, too high-pitched. “I'm fine. I'm just getting some air. That's all. You can go back to the party.”
His steps were soft, but they echoed in my skull. He hovered over me; I counted each second until he spoke. “I know what's going on.”
“Nothing is going on,” I said softly.
Pike parked himself next to me on the step. Our shoulders were close to touching. It took every bit of strength I had to not lean away.
It took even more to not lean closer.
“Ellie. Look at me.”
Shutting my eyes, I gathered myself. “I can't.”
“Sure you can. Just do it.” His fingers touched my knee—I jumped. “Ellie... look at me. Please.”
Please. How weird to hear that from him. It was so out of character, I couldn't help how I turned to face him. We might as well have been abandoned in the middle of a forest for how solitary this moment felt. It was too easy to forget about the rest of the world when Pike was with me.
He whispered, “There. You did it. That wasn't so hard, right?”
I started to speak, hesitated. “Why would it be? I said I was fine.”
Pike's smile grew like a flower after the rain. “You must think I'm stupid.”
“No, that's... I don't think that.”
Sliding his palm up my thigh, he pulled away, leaving me cold. “I can read between the lines, Ellie. You ran out of there because of me.”
Too quickly, my muscles were hardening into cement. Even my tone was stiff. “You're wrong.”
“I'm not.” His brows hooded over those pure, judging pits of ice. “I know jealousy when I see it.”
My chest thrummed in my panic. Fuck. Again with the jealousy. It was the elevator and Becky all over again. Fine. He was calling me out? Didn't he know what social tact was?
Without taking a moment to consider the implications of my shifting emotions, I sat up on the step. The joints in my hands ached from how hard I balled them.
How dare he. What a cocky asshole! Pike wasn't just going to make me suffer through watching him flirt with others, he had the gall to mock me for how it made me feel?
All my cement melted into lava from my righteous fire.
“If you know jealousy,”I hissed, “Then you know scorn. I'm sure you've pissed off a lot of women, I can tell the kind of guy you are.”
Watching me closely, he didn't react. “Go on, tell me who I am.”
“You're—you're!” Stammering, I threw my hands up by my ears. “Fuck! I don't know! You're the kind of jerk that would rub it in someone's face that they clearly like them, when they know they can't... shouldn't...” Trailing off, I grabbed at my rage. It was crumbling, and why were my eyes wet?
“Idiot.”
Hearing his insult, I froze. “Excuse me?”
“Idiot,” he said again, though there was no hatred or malice in his stare. Some brand of emotion boiled, but I couldn't name it. “You're not wrong about me. Not entirely. I have scorned women. I've watched them tear each other up over me.”
He moved suddenly, a hunter in the night that knew my weaknesses. I knew them, too; my body was perpetually aware of how near his mouth was to mine. Warning signals popped like firecrackers. “Pike,” I gasped.
That fierce man stared me down, voice rough and sharp. “But you got one thing wrong. Something so fucking important I can't believe you didn't see it.”
The pulsing of the party was long gone. My heart battled for dominance, rumbling in my ears until I thought I'd go deaf. Licking my lips, I asked hoarsely, “What did I miss?”
Pike folded over me, trapping my chin with his fingers. His other hand was on my hip, pulling me in like we were a human yo-yo. Those perfect lips came down, but they didn't kiss me. He had more to say, his breath tickling over my sensitive flesh. “You missed how I looked at you. You missed how insane you made me, Ellie. Each time we got close, I fought my desire to rip the clothes off your perfect fucking body and just quench my cock inside of you.”
The swell of energy in my belly took hold of my muscles.
Tugging my lower lip away from my teeth with the pad of his thumb, his eyes bounced from there, back to my foggy stare. He said, “You really thought you had to be jealous, Ellie Cutter? After our kiss in that abandoned building... after making out in an open field... and after burying my fingers in your sweet pussy...” Reaching down, he cupped the inside of my thigh, making me groan. “After all that, you honestly thought you had any competition in the whole fucking world?”
I could have fainted. I could have dissolved into nothingness.
This was everything I'd been hoping for.
I needed to know it was real.
Reaching up, I slid my nails across his spine—tangled them in his hair. Pike could have had anyone, and he knew that. Yet here he was, crowded into an empty stairwell with me while the rest of the universe breathed on somewhere else.
Leaning forward, I tasted his mouth. I wanted to move slow, but the urge inside of me had been building for too long. “This time,” I whispered, “No one is going to stop us. Understand?”
Chuckling darkly, he pulled me deeper into the stairwell. “Oh, I understand you loud and clear, Miss Cutter.”
I didn't care what he called me. Not here.
Not in our private bubble.
Together we descended, lit only by the flickering, half-hearted blink of a dying bulb. Seconds ago we'd been kissing. I was suffering from withdrawal already. Pushing him against the cool wallpaper, I stood one step higher just to be level with him.
Pike lurched against me, all smirk and twisting tongue. Inching my palms over the expanse of his shirt, I dipped under, caressing the valley of his stomach; muscle definition that fitness models would kill over.
I didn't know he was letting me set the pace, not until his fingers wrapped around my wrists and clamped them to my sides. His voice was thick, sugary. “We're going to do this my way.”
My eyes flashed, daring him. “Why your way?”
“Because you owe me.”
My chest thrummed, reaching into my core and heating me furiously. The rain checks. So he'd been serious. God, it was like my most sinful, perverse wish was coming to life.
W
atching me like a hawk, he said, “Since I first met you and your smart mouth, I've been fighting a dream that keeps persisting me... no matter how much I try to shake it away.” He dropped an octave lower. “Fuck, I've jerked myself off so many times to this dream, Ellie.”
All my senses swayed, branches in a thunderstorm. “What dream?”
His eyes caught the darkness, blue becoming balmy shadow. “A dream where I shove you against a certain wall. Do you know the one I mean? Back when that guard came along and chased us off?” He waited for me to nod. “Well, in my dream, he doesn't get in the way. Instead, after I steal that first kiss, I press your fabulous tits against the cool stone... rip your jeans down... and eat out what I'm sure is a damn delicious pussy until you're begging me to stop.”
The color in my vision began to saturate. Speaking was a long forgotten skill. Just hearing him saying the word 'pussy' had mine squeezing with awareness.
Brushing his nose along the back of my ear, Pike whispered, “Honestly though, even if you do beg, I don't know that I'll be able to stop. Guess we'll have to find out.”
I was breathless, choking on the forwardness of his words. Alex had been right; Pike was something else. What had I gotten myself into?
With ease he turned me around, crushed my chest against the striped wallpaper. The firmness told me what I already knew; my nipples were trying to drill through my dress. They were as hungry as me, as eager to experience the sexual threat that was Pike Moss.
His presence behind me was a roaring fire. Once, I glanced back, but his hand in my hair stopped me, guiding my cheek to the wall. “Stay,” he commanded. Gripping my hips, he manipulated me. “Spread your legs nice and wide, I want easy access.”
Chewing my lip, I braced my heels; one on the step, the other below on the floor. It made me uneven, I was straddling the air, expectant in my poise. Every sinew in my body was taut.
My existence centered between my thighs, the lust built up from days upon days of being teased. Even cumming on the plane had done little beyond stoking my arousal. I felt... corrupted. Taken over by a primal urge I'd never known.
Pike had transformed me from the stern, business driven woman he'd originally met, into something else.
Something with far less control.
His fine, well-trimmed nails grazed up the backs of my thighs. I'd been ready, but still, I jerked slightly from his touch. His gritty chuckle lifted prickles along every bit of skin that I owned. “Nervous?” he asked.
Staring at the backs of my eyelids, I said, “No. Excited.”
Pike paused, perhaps digesting my comment. Giving no reply, he traced my curved hamstrings down to the hem of my silver dress. Peeling me like an orange, he shifted the silky material upwards. As it capped my ass, bunching on my lower back and exposing me, I wiggled.
“Fucking hell,” he breathed out. Like he'd lost all of the air in his lungs and needed to fill them desperately, Pike crouched down, inhaling along the surface of my tight panties. His face buried between my cheeks, rubbing over the material and making it obvious I was soaking. “Just smelling you has my cock painfully hard.”
Groaning, I shifted side to side. “Prove it, just fuck me already!”
His laugh tickled my pussy. I tensed, but his palms cupped my ass, held me steady. “You'd love that, wouldn't you?” Folding the edges of my panties, he ripped them down to my ankles. The air danced over my nudity, heightening my sense further. Deep in my belly, my muscles flexed from my arousal.
Not being able to watch him made every movement, every puff of air, so much more noticeable. Pike spread me wide, outlining my cunt with his fingers. I remembered how he'd teased me on the plane, so I thought I knew his habits.
I was very wrong.
As he ran his warm tongue over my pussy from bottom to top, my surprise came out as a squeal. Smacking the side of my ass, he was muffled by my thighs. “Not so loud, unless you want someone to come check out what we're doing down here. Personally?” Licking my soaked slit, he moaned. “I don't give a fuck who sees us. I'm not stopping unless someone drags me away in handcuffs.”
He's not lying, I thought in amazement. I was growing woozy, my legs holding me up by sheer will. Scratching my nails over the wall, I rocked my hips, trying to coax him further. The pressure inside of me was taking over, my need to cum bordering on painful.
He buried his tongue in me, persistent with his strokes. One hand came around, circling my swollen clit lazily. It was as if he knew how near my release was, and was amused by how little it would take to send me into bliss.
A casual turn of his mouth, and he was twirling his tongue over my sensitive nub. Biting my wrist, I shuddered at a wave of ecstasy.
“You're shaking,” he whispered.
Was I? I hadn't even noticed—I was too busy keeping myself from falling apart.
Capturing one hip, Pike rose to his feet. His weight and shadow settled over me, his scent crisp, salted by his urges. “What's wrong?” I gasped, confused by why he'd stopped.
Palming his forehead, making me notice how he was sweating, he gave me a look that was almost... rattled. “Shit,” he hissed. “I wanted to watch you go crazy while I tasted you, but I—holding back isn't happening. I can't handle you, Ellie. You make waiting so fucking impossible.”
When his pants slid down, revealing his massive erection—and that he hadn't been wearing boxers—I grasped what he was saying.
I'm driving him over the edge. He can't focus, not like he's apparently used to.
I'd thought Pike was pulling me into fragments, but in the end, he was tormenting himself just as much.
Splaying my legs wider, I whimpered impatiently. I'm ashamed to say that he was the first to even think about a condom. Slipping it from his pocket, the sight made me blink. I'd been about to let him drive his stiffness right into me, and I hadn't stopped to consider the repercussions.
This... god, this wasn't like me at all.
Rolling the condom down his cock, Pike fisted his base, staring at me with the eyes of a man lost to his desire. “I hope you're ready,” he said, sliding his tip over my wet entrance. “I promised you once that I'd make you scream my name... I wasn't joking. Not one bit.”
Shivering, I braced myself—hugged the wall tight. The wide head of his cock pushed inside of me, spreading me in such a way I started to worry. Except I was too anxious, too wrapped up in the pleasure he'd created inside of me, for him to hurt.
“Ah, Pike...!” My lashes beat like butterfly wings, my pussy copying the motion across the rigid heat of his cock. He was stretching me open, testing what I was capable of. Though he held my shoulders, moving into me with careful patience, I knew he was fighting to control himself.
Even when he was taken over by lust, Pike didn't want me injured.
With each action he took, I was learning more about him; he was selfish, certainly, but there was no denying the compassion residing in this inked alpha of a man. I'd said it earlier—he could have had anyone he wanted at that party, but in the end, he'd chosen me.
Pike was someone who went after what he wanted.
In this, we were eerily the same.
“Faster,” I groaned, clenching my teeth.
“I'm not even all the way in yet,” he said, amusement coating the strain in his voice.
“I don't care!” Panting, I shuddered as sweat dripped between my breasts. I was bent over, supported between the wall and the man behind me. There was no where to go, nothing to do but piston back on that thick, hard cock.
I was more than happy with that fact.
Grunting, he dug his nails in when I drove my ass back against him. I'd closed the last of the gap between us; his balls rustled on my soft skin, urging me to get more strokes out of him. Arching forward, I withdrew my slick pussy down his length.
“Jesus fuck!” He made a noise that was closer to a snarl than anything human. “Fine, you want it so bad? I'll give it to you, sugar. Hate to think you'd leave feeling unsatisfie
d.”
I knew he was playing with me, but I didn't have the patience to go along. My body was speaking for me, my inner walls milking his cock with every desperate movement I made.
Grabbing me by the waist, Pike took charge. He had the leverage to give me what I needed—what we both needed—and he was ready to show me what that was.
What it meant to take a ride on Pike Moss.
“Pike!” I gasped, reeling from the force of his thrust. Again, before I caught my breath, he slid out and jammed deep into me. He had a rhythm, and it was as rough and unyielding as the tide itself.
Dizzy with pleasure, I wondered how I was handling his thickness. Pike had me at the brink, stirring my cunt up over and over. Just as I adjusted to his girth, he swelled larger with a rush of excitement—his own release was so very close.
Melting from his heat, I breathed heavily on the wallpaper. It was damp from my saliva, but I didn't fucking care. Hot, wet decadence was dancing just on the horizon. Every pump of his cock took me closer and closer. My orgasm was inevitable, drawing from somewhere so low in my core it stole the oxygen from my lungs.
One spasm, then another, and the electric force shifted through my body. The muscles in my pussy squeezed, thrumming of their own accord as I came. I saw nothing—felt nothing—but the existence of the man inside of me. I'd waited too long for this moment, and here it was, wrecking my consciousness in one fell swoop of pleasure.
“God, Ellie!” His words were muffled by the paradise surrounding my brain. Through the condom, I sensed the warm heat and sharp jerks as he finished. He kept fucking me as he came, like his body was on a loop, acting on impulse.
Through my shattering aftershocks I rode his ecstasy, let it mix with my own. Knowing my orgasm had been what had tipped him over gave me a rush of satisfaction.
In that quiet stairwell that was filled with nothing but our heavy breaths and the flickering lights of forgotten maintenance, Pike and I held each other, supported our bodies so we wouldn't crumble. It was sheer determination. It was pride.