by Teagan Kade
“Well, most were my father’s, actually. He was stationed in Tokyo after the Vietnam War, fell into the music scene there… and love.”
“Your mother…?”
“Did a runner as soon as she popped me out, which I’m fine with.”
“You’ve never tried to contact her, get in touch?”
“Dad tried, for years, but no dice. These days, given his condition, I’d be lucky if he even remembers my name.”
“I’m sorry.”
I select another record before slipping it back into position unconsciously, my thoughts on my father. “What about your family? Your brothers?”
Hunter still has the Maki Asakawa album in his hands, staring through it. “Three, actually, each as wild as the next, though I don’t see them as much as I’d like these days.”
“You’re not jealous of your brother, what was his name? The big football star?” I ask lightly.
I see his face register ‘Yes’ immediately, but I can also see he’s moved on, made his peace with his current lot in life. Perhaps he had to.
“I’m proud of him, truly, but I’m proud of what I do too.”
I move to the kitchen and take a bottle of whiskey from the shelf and two tumblers, pouring a finger each. “And what’s that?” I enquire, handing him a glass. I’m close to him, close enough to fall under the spell of those opal eyes, that masculine draw that has the space between my legs heating like a forge.
You don’t want this, do you?
And I sure as hell surprise myself when I find the answer firmly in the affirmative.
I shift forward closer still and sip at the whiskey. It’s warm against the back of my throat.
His eyes move to my lips, glazed over with desire. He wants this as much as I do. Is a good idea? Fuck no. In the hall of the World’s Worst this is probably front and center, but I want him, desperately, urgently, with every tingling nerve in my body.
“Protect,” he finally replies. “That’s what I’m doing,” he adds, his head starting to fall forward.
“And?” I whisper, my lips parting to meet his, my heart trying to beat itself free of my body.
“To serve,” he finishes, his voice cracking.
We move, our lips so close I can feel the heat of him as a physical force, the welcoming warmth of his body.
The fire alarm starts to ring, deafening.
We jerk apart as if a bolt of lightning was sent from the sky above.
My instincts kick in, my spidey senses on full alert.
“What’s going on?” says Hunter, placing down the record. I shrug, simultaneously disappointed and relieved. “Hell if I know.”
We join the other occupants making their way down the fire exit. I can’t smell smoke.
Everyone’s gathering out the front of the building where an engine’s parked. I find who appears to the person in charge and walk over, flashing my badge. “What’s going on here?”
The alarm continues to sound out shrill and abrasive in the background.
“Gas leak,” he says, opening a short door on the side of the truck.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he repeats.
“How long until we can get back in?”
He shrugs with the practiced finesse of someone in his position. “Hard to say—couple of hours, at least.”
Hunter’s hand falls lightly on my lower back, easing me away. “Why don’t you crash at my place? It’s only a couple of blocks away.”
I’ve had worse offers.
I nod, stepping to the street to hail down a cab.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HUNTER
“Home sweet home,” I tell Grace, ushering her into James’s apartment and noting how entirely unlike home it actually feels.
She stands in the living room with her hands on her hips. “Jesus H, Beckett. I’ve seen crack dens better furnished than this.”
She’s not wrong. Seems James is not big on frivolous items—fruit jars and vases and seats you can’t sit on. “It’s actually a friend’s place. He’s ex-Army, a practical sort of guy.”
“Like yourself?”
She looks gorgeous standing there. I’m caught by a sudden urge to take her in my hands and drag her my room.
Grace narrows her eyes at me. “Your friend got a bathroom?”
“Down the hall on the right.”
I lean on the back of the sofa and wait, my mind running over exactly what’s happening here, because this is becoming far more than a partner-partner situation. The heat Grace’s giving off, the sheer electricity between us is going to spill over soon and, frankly, I don’t know if I should let it. Grace’s not like the girls I’ve been with before. She’s tough, independent, a female bottle rocket. Sure, I was something like that myself once… before the sickness struck me down, took away close to everything I had, including my life.
I’m still thinking how, or if, I should tell her when she basically decides for me.
“That your mobile drug store down back?” she announces, leaning her sweet ass against the kitchen counter.
She’s no doubt referring to the many meds now taking up place of prominence in the medicine cabinet.
Let her in. Just fucking try it. What’s the worst that can happen?
“In college I was diagnosed with aplastic anemia,” I tell her. The words are once more dirty in my mouth, like I’m admitting my weakness here, my kryptonite.
Her face screws up. “Plastic-what?”
“A really shitty disease where your body can’t produce enough new blood cells, which is, yeah, kind of an issue if you’re looking to stay alive.”
“Damn, but you’re… cured, right? Because you sure as shit don’t look unwell to me.”
I breathe out. I’ve tried to pack this away, file it in the ‘don’t give a fuck’ box, but even speaking about it is causing me to unsettle, my muscles to tighten, pulse to quicken at the hellish nightmare I went through. “When I was diagnosed, my little brother Colton came with me to LA for treatment, and I mean a lot of treatment.”
I pull down my shirt to show her the small, circular scar below my neck. “This is where they put the Hickman line for ATG, basically a seventy-percent chance of effectiveness, reboot your immune system so your bone marrow has a chance of making new blood cells. They use animal antibodies, so I’ve got horse cells, more or less.”
Her eyes drop seductively to my crotch. “And a horse cock to match?”
I can’t help but wear a thin smile. The way she says ‘cock’ has mine hardening like fucking Araldite. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“And it worked, these horse cells?” she continues.
“It fucked me up—hard. I’d shake and shiver, every muscle in my body spasming, hives everywhere. I looked like death, seriously. I needed multiple blood and platelet transfusions. I wanted to die. That’s the honest truth.”
“But you didn’t.”
“They put me on prednisone, fluconazole, valacyclovir, ranitidine, cyclosporine… the whole alphabetical spectrum. It took me two years to get my energy and strength back, and even then, I wasn’t anywhere close to one-hundred percent—still aren’t.”
“And they let you into the Force with this condition?”
My outbreath is muted. “I might have left certain details out.”
Grace nods slowly. “Wow, look at you, bad boy, skirting the rules and not giving a damn.”
“I’ve tapered off a lot of the drugs, but it’s a constant threat I have to be mindful of. I suppose now I’ve told you all this, opened up, so to speak, you want nothing to do with me.”
She pads forward slowly, her hand against my chest and falling down to the waistband of my pants. “On the contrary.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that moment, that strange limbo before sexual contact.
Her lower lip trembles before me, her breath coming in quick pants.
I study her eyes and know exactly where this is going.
&
nbsp; Fuck it.
I lean in and kiss her, taking her face in my hands. I soak in her warmth and heat, conscious of the sensation collecting low in my belly. It’s alien, animal. It’s raw.
Her hand runs under the hem of my shirt and finds the firm muscle there, her fingers splaying out over the rippled corrugations of my abs. Each touch echoes through my body.
She deepens the kiss, my length against her chest. I focus on the wet pressure of her lips, the taste of her mouth and tongue. It’s exactly as I imagined and more.
I want nothing between us, to feel her skin and flesh against my own, to be inside her, filling her.
Her free hand runs into my hair, tousling it. She pulls, harder than I expect, a tight groan vibrating through my lips against hers, ricocheting between us.
The heavy weight of my hands finds her hips, drawing slowly upwards and with it her top, her bare flesh beckoning.
The kiss becomes an all-out assault. I seize her, nipping at her neck, my cock rock hard as I attempt to lay her on the couch.
‘Attempt’ is the operative word, because she somehow manages to flip us around, shoving me with two hands so I am the one who’s on my back.
Sirens sound outside, blue and red washing through the room. Grace straddles me on the couch. She pulls off her top and casts it away, her eyes wide and wild. The black bra she’s wearing is delicate and lacy, almost too feminine given its owner, but it too is gone in no time, tossed aside to the clothes strewn across the apartment like candy wrappers.
She pushes her chest out and runs her hands under my shirt, smiling and moaning in approval. “Let’s see what we’ve got here, shall we?”
I’m not used girls who are this forward. I’m more surprised to find what a massive turn-on it is. If my cock was any harder, it could cut diamonds.
Relax, I tell myself, my muscles stiffening, my heart galloping inside my chest.
I’ll take what I need and she can do likewise, no strings between us.
The surprises continue when she takes hold of my shirt and pulls, tearing it square down the middle, the smile on her lips hinting at the hellfire to come.
God, she smells incredible. The closer she gets, the more I realize how intoxicating it is, the sudden spicy, urban aroma she’s giving off so different to what I’ve come to know, laced with danger and the exotic.
Her breasts are balanced, ample—full and perfect in every way.
I know this is a mistake, a giant ‘told you so’ waiting to happen, but I’m powerless now under her spell, her body. I want this more than anything, to slide inside her heat and wetness, if only to prove she’s a woman after all.
But as she lowers herself, the tight, taut tips of her nipples brushing my chest, her tongue slipping into my mouth, forcing itself deeper, there’s no doubt.
I slide my hands up her waist and take a handful of her ass, my squeezing met with a mewing that only increases my desperation. I squeeze harder and she laughs against my lips, breaking away to nuzzle against my neck, sucking against my skin so hard it’s certain to leave a mark—her mark.
She wants to brand me, and surely that’s what this is, a power struggle, a way for her to show her dominance because some guy screwed her over or her date never showed up to prom. I don’t know why Grace Siddell is this way, I don’t know why I want her so bad, but I’m god-damned determined to find out.
I reach up to the waistband of her pants, holding it with her panties and sliding them over her ass, the hot skin below on fire as I go. She brings her knees up, sitting on her crotch with her heels on my chest. She kicks her shoes off, never once taking her aureate eyes off me. Using one hand, remove her underwear and pants from her ankles. Completely naked, she grinds down against my cock, her crotch a hot iron against my own. I know she’s wet, ready. I breathe in her arousal, my cock twitching in response.
Her tight ass fits perfectly in my hands. I’m about to lift her up when she rises and crab-walks forward, her knees either side of my head, her hands on the sofa arm and her exposed sex only inches above my mouth.
It’s shaved smooth, delicate, cherry lips spread and inviting.
She looks down. “You just going to stare at it all day?”
For a moment I remain spellbound until I realize what she’s asking. I take hold of her hips and pull her down against my face, bury my tongue deep inside the hot vice of her sex. She groans and grinds down against me, her arousal everywhere, suffocating me.
My hips jerk upwards, but there’s nothing there—phantom thrusts to tide me over until the main event.
If I don’t suffocate first.
I lap her clit with the flat of tongue, unable to get enough of this, of her.
She responds by spreading her legs wider and gyrating her hips back and forth, fucking my face and loving every, moan-inducing moment of it.
I reach up to find her breasts with my hands, cupping and weighing them, playing with the pink stubs protruding from each until her fingers clasp around mine, urging me on, rocking and sliding against my tongue and mouth.
I want her to come, to feel her release, but she has other plans. “Good boy,” she purrs, lifting herself away and shifting down to the end of the couch. She pulls off my shoes and strips away my jeans and underwear, her wild eyes strewn briefly silver by passing lights outside, the playful smile on her face telling me whatever’s coming next is going to blow more than my mind.
She crouches like a cat between my legs and takes hold of the root of my cock, never breaking eye contact. For someone so hands-on at work, her fingers are velvet against my length.
She begins to stroke, long and slow. “I have to say. I’m impressed. I really am.”
Before I can reply she’s lowered her head and taken half my length into the hot confines of her mouth.
My head kicks back, my eyes shuttering closed against the overpowering sensation.
Someone’s on the phone outside, speaking in Arabic. There’s a soft thumping, feet padding across the floor above. A tap drips down the hall like a wet metronome.
I’ve had blowjobs before, but the way Grace sucks and moves her mouth, her tongue curling around my cock, is incredible. But it’s not just the technical proficiency, it’s the enthusiasm and pleasure she seems to be getting from the task that drags me kicking and screaming to the edge.
I lift my head and open my eyes, the sight of her taking my cock between her lips, her free hand working between her legs at the same time, almost forcing a premature end.
I grit my teeth and stave it off. I don’t want this to end so soon. Hell, I never want it to end.
But I have to be inside her.
Suddenly her lips drop further and I realize she’s taken all of me, right down to the root—a considerable feat given my size, but she relishes the task, humming and moaning—no gag reflex, no nothing but the slick satisfaction of her mouth and throat.
My god. Who is this girl?
She draws my cock out with a pop from her lips, licking them and laughing. “I do like a challenge.”
I can’t speak. I’m lost for words—a true rarity for a Beckett.
“Ah,” she nods, “continuing to lightly pump away at my length, “I know what you want. You got protection?”
I fish for my pants on the floor and find my wallet, taking a wrapper out.
Still holding my cock, she tears it open with her mouth, sheathing me quickly and staring down at her handiwork. “Beautiful cock you have here, Billy Ray. Question is, what can you do with it?”
I can’t take it anymore.
It’s time to take the old Hunter Beckett off the bench.
I reach up and take her around the waist, flipping her over until she’s underneath me. She doesn’t fight it, a small squeal of delight as I nudge her legs apart.
She goes to say something, but I cover her mouth with my own and drive forward into her slick center. She’s tight, but she’s ridiculously wet, offering little resistance as I draw back and thrust forward, harder and
deeper now until we’re pressed firmly against one another.
Her hands come up to my buttocks, urging me on, her body flapping below me as we move together. “Yes. Yes.”
The way she moves, her back arching up, her nipples feathering against my chest… It’s tepid, cool, but we’re sweating hard. She grunts and moans against my lips, our tongues wrestling against one another as I pound into her.
“Harder,” she whispers against my ear, an order.
I hold her off the couch, let her levitate in my hands as I give her my entire length.
Her moaning gets louder, loud enough for the neighbors to hear, maybe the damn whole neighborhood, but I don’t care, thrusting faster and faster, drawing us both to the inevitable.
I grunt when her fingernails claw down my back, hard enough to draw blood, but the unexpected sensation only makes me fuck her harder, fucking and driving into her wet body until we’re little more than animals, savage and wild.
When she comes, spilling over, it’s like nothing I’ve felt before. She grabs at my hair, pulling hard, her pussy gripping my cock so tight that for a short moment I fear it will be cut clean off. Her sex pulses, opening and closing around my member until my own orgasm is forced.
I cry out in release, the climax endless, staring down into her ochre scrutiny, drugged and hazy.
She continues to flap below, her fingers searching for anything to grip and hold, her head whipping left to right as she fights through the final aftershocks of her orgasm.
Drained, dry, I slump down to the side of her, caught between the harsh fabric of the couch and her slick body, doing my best to pull in air that suddenly seems in such short supply.
We kiss, my hand against her face. I could explore her mouth forever. She nips playfully at my upper lip, her tongue easing forward to match my own.
My cock jerks against my leg in approval.
I realize, lying there, I’m in trouble, because that, that was addictive in the best and worst sense of the word.
Grace Siddell, my new partner, has seduced me, and I’ve allowed myself to fall for her. What she intends to do with me is anyone’s guess, but it’s probably going to cost me my badge, my dignity, possibly my identity if I’m not careful.