As the men approached, a prowling pack of hyenas, he shoved Nina behind him and ordered tightly, “Do not move.”
“James—”
“Nina, listen to me. Do. Not. Move.”
He heard her shaky intake of breath, felt the press of her palm against his back. Knew that for once, she would listen. Reassured, he zeroed in on the approaching men again.
When they were a few metres away, he folded his arms and asked steadily, “Do we have a problem, gentlemen?”
The group, who had slowed down noticeably when Nina disappeared behind James, now came to a stop. The de facto leader, a scrawny white guy in a crumpled polo shirt and chinos, shot James a wary look. He shrugged, then looked back at his mates as if to remind himself of their presence, before stepping forward to reply. “No problem, pal,” he said. “Just thought we saw… someone.”
“Well,” James said evenly, “you didn’t. So turn around and piss off.”
Henchman number one, to the left of their fearless leader, hardened his rat-like jaw and adjusted the cap on his pin-head. “Alright, mate, calm down. Thing is, yeah, this is a free fucking country. No-one’s telling me what to do. Not you”—he spat on the ground—“or her.”
Fury racing through James’s blood, he surged forward. “This is the last time I repeat myself. Turn. The fuck. Around.” He looked at each man in turn, holding their gazes, letting them see.
See everything feral in him, just ready and waiting to come to the fore.
Maybe it was his size, the sight of his clenched fists, or something else—something vicious vibrating through his bones. Whatever the case, the leader caught his friend’s arm in an iron grip and muttered, “Come on, Harry. Ain’t worth the fucking mess.” They turned and left, their shadows receding around the corner until the street was empty but for passing cars again.
When James was certain they were gone, and his adrenaline had faded enough for him to do more than growl, he spun around and dragged Nina into his arms. She grabbed him right back, burrowing against his chest, grasping fistfuls of his jumper. Her hair tickled his jaw, her breaths coming quick against the hollow at the base of his throat. She smelled like coconut oil and sweat and unexpected, unnerving trust.
For a moment—just a second—James let himself forget that there were certain things he shouldn’t feel. Desperate affection flooded his senses until he was almost weak with it. He might be twice Nina’s size, but right now it felt like she was the one holding him up.
Protect her. You have to protect her.
Always.
Sometimes he felt as if he’d been made for it.
“I didn’t...” Her usually strident voice was tentative, fragile as spun sugar. “I didn’t expect—I knew people were saying things online, but I don’t think I really believed they’d…”
Recognise her? Approach her? Make it real?
Despite what she’d already been through, with the doxxing, the threats, the swarm of right-wing journalists who’d rushed to expose Nina’s views to their massive followings… James clearly hadn’t believed this would become real, either. Because the shock he felt right now was just too visceral.
But it all made a sick sort of sense. This political minefield had hooked its claws under the skin of so many citizens, and they were letting it drag them around like puppets. The widespread frenzy loosened tongues and inhibitions, bringing to light all the little violences people had once hidden. There was something sour at the root of this nation, a bitter evil that had been buried rather than exposed and healed. Some political issues excelled in dragging that bitterness to the fore.
Nina knew all this, so James didn’t piss her off by trying to explain it. He just held her tighter and whispered, “Shh. I’ve got you. It was bad luck. This is a small city. But this moment, all this attention, it will fade.” He swallowed. “And I’ll always be here. As long as you need me.”
He meant it. Which was yet another reason to resist her, to resist his own desire: James could never leave Nina again, regardless of whether or not this nightmare blew over. He understood that now. So, to stay by her side, he had to remain steady. Reliable. Permanent.
He couldn’t complicate matters between them. He couldn’t become temporary.
Maybe it wouldn’t need to be like that. Nina’s a smart woman. Explain to her, calmly and logically, that she’s yours, and if she agrees with your reasoning she might just let it happen.
James shook his head and decided he was still high on adrenaline. He turned his focus back to scouting their surroundings while stroking Nina’s hair.
Long moments passed before she stirred. After several deep breaths, she pushed back slightly, looking up at him. There was steel in her dark gaze, her jaw, her spine. She was defiant again, was determined again.
Just like that.
God, he loved this woman.
“I think you were right, before,” she said, her voice utterly steady.
James arched an eyebrow. “About what?”
“Help: I need more of it.” She took out her phone and made a call.
Chapter Seven
They went home, stuffed their faces with pizza, and watched old Syfy reruns where the bad guys got stabbed or thrown into the centre of the sun or brainwashed with green goo every time. James watched Nina closely, noticed her sending furtive texts and staring into space with what he called her thinking face firmly in place. He worried and hoped in equal measures.
Worried, because earlier tonight, Nina had been scared, and he hated the rare sight of Nina scared.
Hoped, because Nina was also brilliant. Her mind and her mean streak were both wicked-sharp—especially when provoked.
When bedtime rolled around, they slipped easily into a routine: cleaning the kitchen, sharing the bathroom, Nina humming as she brushed her teeth, James trying not to get attached to the domestic feel of it all.
He bid her goodnight, turned all the lights off, and checked his phone. There was an email from Markus. He left that alone.
Hey, man. You know how you asked me, last Christmas, if I was into your sister, and I laughed my arse off and asked you how the hell that would’ve happened? I lied. Sorry. Stay safe, by the way.
Yeah. They should probably have that conversation in person.
Sleep was fitful, when it came, but he’d expected that. He wasn’t surprised when thoughts of Nina—protecting her, holding her, having her—kept him awake and restless on the squashed-up little sofa.
And he wasn’t shocked to find his hand sliding down to his hard cock again in the very early hours of the morning.
But somehow when Nina appeared in the doorway like a dream, like a wish, like a fantasy he didn’t deserve to taste—that was what knocked him on his arse.
He stared at her for a moment in the near darkness, like she might disappear if he waited long enough. But maybe this made sense. She’d been scared. She’d needed him. And she needed him still.
Send her away. Three times is a pattern. We can’t be a pattern.
But fuck, she looked so small and so alone, standing by the window. James sat up, swallowing hard as he took in the curls piled on top of her head, the eyes free of makeup and more vulnerable for it, the nervous slide of her hands over her bare thighs.
Although he must have that part wrong, somehow. Nina couldn’t actually be nervous. Nina was never nervous, and she had no reason to be that way with him. Did she?
The question nagged at him, set him on edge. Maybe that was why, when he meant to tell her to leave, he accidentally said: “Come here.”
She was standing in front of him in seconds, her body slotting in the space between his open knees like she belonged there. For a moment he couldn’t even see her scantily-clad body—the shadow of her mound or the curve of her belly or the stiff tips of her nipples through her top—because he was way too focused on her face. Her beautiful, familiar face, the one that had been stamped with fear earlier, and now looked just a little tense.
Maybe,
if he touched her now, he’d be taking care of her. Maybe saying no would make a bad night worse. Maybe this was actually his moral duty. James told himself all these bullshit things over the pounding of his pulse, and pretended he believed them.
“You okay, sweetheart?” he whispered.
Nina shrugged, which, as far as James was concerned, meant No. Then she put her hands on his shoulders, leaning on him slightly—which as far as James was concerned, meant help me.
Yes, ma’am.
He ran his hands over her thighs, her hips, then round to squeeze the swell of her arse. She released a soft little sound and let her head fall back. A hunger for more of her reactions roared to life in him, and he bent forward to brush a kiss against her skin. His mouth met the tender strip of stomach between her top and her underwear. She shivered, moaned, urged him on with every restless shift and wordless sigh of pleasure.
Yes, yes, yes.
James opened his mouth, introduced the tip of his tongue to those slow, sucking kisses. Pushed her top higher and higher, his lips following, until she was panting hard enough for him to hear over the rush of blood in his ears. When kissed the underside of her breast, she moaned, “Fuck, James,” and the words acted like lightning in his blood. He was on fire, electrified. Loving this woman had never felt more urgent.
He pulled her down until she was straddling him, then peeled off her top completely, leaving her in nothing but her knickers, bare-chested and blushless in his lap. She cupped the back of his head with shaking hands and arched toward him. “Please,” she whispered.
“So pretty when you beg, Nina.”
“Please.”
“Good girl.” He wrapped his arms around her and worshipped her sweet little tits without restraint.
Nina was dying. Which was fine. Dying of pleasure turned out to be an excellent experience.
In the low light and the night-time quiet, her senses were flooded with James. The scent of him, that echo she’d smelled in his bed, was a thousand times as intense now that he held her tight. The heat of him, from his hard cock wedged between her thighs to his slick tongue circling her nipple, burned so beautifully. His growling moans as he pressed his face against her breasts made the tension in Nina’s belly tighten, tighten, tighten. He was always so desperate for her, when they were like this. Surely that meant something. Surely it did.
Or maybe it didn’t. But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—think about all that now. Not when he was wiping the bitterness of tonight’s events away with his insistent hands. He cupped her arse, pressing her harder against his erection, grinding his hips with a wild need she understood perfectly. Nina clutched at his broad shoulders and matched him move for move, riding his dick through the layers of their underwear until she found the perfect angle.
When she moaned at the slow, rhythmic pressure, James looked up as if the ragged sound had called him. Their eyes met for a moment before he cradled her face in his hands and—and—
And nothing.
He’d been ready to kiss her. She’d swear it. For a second there, he’d thought about pressing his lips to hers. But in the end, he bent his head to kiss her throat instead. The coil of tension in Nina’s stomach trembled and threatened to release, disappointment cooling blood that had been burning hot.
But then he spoke. He spoke, and she was back in the moment again, determined to take what he would give, even if it wasn’t everything she wanted.
“Tell me what to do, Nina,” he murmured. “You want to come? I’ll make you come. You want me to lick that pretty pussy again?”
God, yes. Yes. But when she opened her mouth to say as much, something stopped her. A need even deeper than the desire for pleasure.
She wanted to pleasure him.
“Let me touch you,” she whispered. Let me give you something. Let me have what power I can over you, just for a little while.
Maybe he heard all that she didn’t say—because he hesitated. But only for a moment. Then he gave her what she craved.
“Yes,” he said, and sat back.
Just one word, and the animal in her was released.
She swallowed as she leaned back to look at him. God, he was beautiful. In the silvery half-light the moon cast through their window, James glowed like some sort of fairy-tale prince. He was all pure, delicious darkness in the shadows, from his smooth skin to his hypnotic eyes. His full lips were slightly tilted in a teasing smile that made her heart skip a beat, but what really got her was his body.
His fucking body.
The barely restrained strength of it, and the softness too. He was comfort itself, power and gentleness, with his broad shoulders and heavy thighs, the curls of hair on his massive chest and the satisfying curve of his belly. She darted forward to kiss his nipples, first the left and then the right, tasting the raw sweetness of his skin with her tongue. When his breath hitched, she felt delicious satisfaction flare in her gut.
Yes, this was what she wanted: him. Piece by piece, moan by moan.
Her resolve strengthened, Nina began the kisses again—slowly, luxuriously, laving her tongue over the most sensitive parts of his body as she discovered them. The side of his throat, his biceps, his chest, belly, hips. She crawled off the sofa to kneel before him as she licked and sucked at the skin just above his briefs. When she turned her head, and her cheek brushed his dick through the fabric, James’s whole body stiffened.
“Nina,” he choked out, his hips rising and falling in an urgent rhythm. “Fuck, Nina, baby…”
She almost moaned out loud at those words. Dragging his underwear off with one hand, she buried the other between her own thighs to stroke her desperate pussy. Couldn’t stop, not when he was sitting there looking like that, kicking away his briefs and fisting his hard cock.
When he cupped the back of her head with one hand, Nina whimpered with pleasure, fingers circling her clit faster and faster. And when he pressed the gleaming head of his cock to her lips, she opened her mouth greedily.
“This what you want, sweetheart? You’re sure?”
She’d barely finished the word Yes before he groaned and fed her that rigid length.
James tasted sharp and salty and perfect. His dick was as thick as the rest of him, already making her jaw ache, but the sensation didn’t register as painful. No, to Nina, the insistent pressure of James filling her mouth to capacity was an erotic high. Her fingers slipped through her folds to her own tightening entrance, and she fucked herself in earnest, pressing the palm of her hand against her clit. Now her pussy stretched around her fingers, her mouth stretched around this man’s magnificent dick, and God, she could come just like this.
But she wouldn’t. Not yet. She wanted to stay lucid enough to taste it when he spurted down her throat.
So Nina sucked, hard and wet, as her mouth slid over James’s cock. “Jesus,” he hissed, dragging out the word. His eyes screwed shut in pleasure, his fist tightened in her hair, and the tendons in his neck strained as he threw back his head. Nina sucked again and again, graceless and desperate, and James grew wild beneath her, grunting and growling like an animal.
“Shit,” he gasped, his eyes popping open. “You’re gonna make me come. Slow down.”
She slid off his length for a moment, breathless and loving it. “I want to make you come. Let me.”
He studied her face for a moment before nodding. “If that’s what you want, sweetheart.”
Laughter bubbled up without permission. “Like it’s not what you want.”
His smile was sharp. “Anything I want becomes a thousand times better when you want it too, Nina. So if you want me to come down your throat—”
“Yes.”
“Do me a favour. Keep playing with that wet little pussy for me. Make sure you come.”
“Yes,” she breathed again, and went back to sucking greedily on his cock.
In the end, they came together. James with a shout and a shudder, gasping her name as he pumped hot and wet into her mouth. And Nina, moaning aroun
d his erection, was pushed over the edge by the sight of him.
When they were done, he pulled her back into his lap and held her tight and kissed her forehead, and for long, long moments, everything was absolutely perfect. She was dizzy with satisfaction, elated by it.
But then he kissed her head again, and sighed, and reached for her clothes. “You better go back to bed,” he said. “Or you’ll be knackered tomorrow. We both will.”
And just like that, everything was shit again.
Chapter Eight
There weren’t many people in her life that Nina considered accessible. Her brother was abroad being a tool of western imperialism, and her parents were retired dentists in Norfolk who scolded her for calling her brother a tool of western imperialism. (Really. It wasn’t as if she blamed the individuals involved; it was the historic system she had a problem with.) She didn’t like to bother her friends, almost as much as she hated to bother her family.
But she’d been forced to bother James, and it hadn’t even ended badly. He was… helping. Things were going well.
Except for the whole tragic, unrequited love thing. And the head-fuck orgasms he throws out every so often.
Whatever.
The point was, she’d bothered James—and now here she was, days after the post-Bounce Nation fiasco, badgering someone else. Funny, how it got easier—how it felt less like admitting defeat—every time.
James would probably call that growth.
“Rahul says we have to eat before we talk,” Jasmine Allen informed Nina over her glossy coffee table. “He says that to do otherwise would make us as wild and lawless as animals, and he absolutely will not have it.”
Across the open-plan living space, Jasmine’s boyfriend, Rahul, gave her a pointed look over the breakfast bar. “That’s not exactly how I phrased it, Jas.” His expression was severe, all smooth, brown skin over sharp, hawkish lines. But his eyes danced behind the frames of his glasses.
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