by J. C. Cliff
“Stryke—” I gasp, unable to finish his name, because my lungs constrict the instant he takes a long, hard lick, pressing his tongue past my slit. His fingers dig deeper into my thighs with brutal strength, forcing my legs to stay as far apart as possible. His tongue plunges in as deep as he can go, and then he swirls that delicious warm and wet muscle along the circumference of my inner walls.
He’s licking, tasting, and sucking at my core with a ravenous hunger. My legs begin to tremble with uncontrolled spasms. He sucks hard and merciless as if he wants every ounce of my arousal. My toes curl in a vain attempt to cope with the overwhelming onslaught of sensations.
Stryker has always had this effect on me. No one else has ever been able to come close to the feelings he evokes in me. No one. The need to come suddenly becomes a frantic priority. I’m spiraling out of control. I’m right on the edge of an explosion, and if he holds it back from me this time I swear I might burst into tears.
Needing more, my fingers dig and curl into his short hair. There’s very little to hold onto, but I do my best as I buck my hips forward. The unrelenting probing, strokes, and swirls of his talented tongue has me flying high. I shamelessly grind against his mouth, coercing him to go deeper, harder, faster.
His beautiful eyes snap to mine at that moment, and I can see the days of pent-up sexual repression behind them. He skims his tongue in a wet path to cover my clit with the warmth of his mouth while watching my reactions. My eyes roll back in my head as he begins flicking his tongue back and forth over my bundle of nerves. Two of his fingers slip back inside my greedy core, and I cry out his name, “Stryker!” I pant furiously as more uncontrolled cries slip past my lips. I thrash my head from side to side in hysterical delirium. “Oh my God. Stryker.”
His fingers work me with punishing thrusts, fast and hard, just like I wanted. His knuckles grind unapologetically against the lips of my sex. I’d swear he was trying to fist me, because he rotates his wrist, twisting his fingers in a tortuous pattern while using a heavy pressure that has me seeing stars. He stretches my pussy to a fullness I’ve never felt before. He knows exactly how to work me, he always did, and it appears he’s never forgotten.
There’s nothing sweet and tender about this moment anymore. He’s turned aggressive and carnal, bordering along the lines of savage. This moment stems from years of pent-up aggression and both of us having to spend the past couple of days together basically tied at the hip while I tried to thwart off all his sexual advances.
I’m so full on the inside I can’t see straight. As he sucks hard on my clit, a choked cry escapes my throat. I’m seconds away from waking up the entire building, so I brutally gnash my teeth together, filling the room with sharp sounds of forced air hissing between my teeth. The way he sucks, licks, and flicks his tongue over my clit is driving me insane. A dampness breaks out all over my body, making me slick with sweat.
His twisting fingers deep inside me slow down, and then his fingers change their direction and pace as he begins stroking against my g-spot with accuracy. My inner walls grip his fingers like a vice. “Oh, God,” I whimper. “Don’t,” I beg breathlessly, “don’t stop!” And he doesn’t stop; he remains relentless as a toe-curling orgasm rips through me.
A fire blazes from the center of my soul, burning outward, destroying any last remaining walls I was holding up. I let myself go as earth-shattering tremors wrack my entire body. My jaw aches from suppressing my screams, having to weather through one of the most intense climaxes I can remember. Every nerve has gone numb and tingly, my entire body convulsing in ecstasy.
Stryker draws out my release for as long as possible, and I thank God the moment he’s able to pick up on my body language, because I can’t take anymore overstimulation. His tongue slows down its pace, dancing lazily over my sensitive skin with feather-light strokes. My heart is still hammering in my throat as I clamor for a steady breath. I lay here helplessly in a dazed stupor, wondering what the hell just happened. The second he saw me in this room, he knew what he wanted, knew what he was going to do. He didn’t hesitate either. He struck at me like a cobra lying in wait.
I realize I still have a death grip on the short strands of his blondish hair. I slowly release my cramped fingers from their grasp. In a relaxed, blissful haze, I begin to lovingly stroke his damp hair, brushing down the wet spikes I had created. His chin lifts, his green and blue-rimmed eyes bright with mirth, and a satisfied boyish grin plays on his lips. My heart squeezes with something indefinable. I’d be blind not to see the dynamic shift that just took place between the two of us.
He looks as if he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. I want to pull him to me, hold him tightly, beg him to promise me he won’t ever hurt me again. He must see the multiple emotions playing over my expression, because his eyes soften. His features evolve from heated and sexual, turning into something warm and tender, full of concern. He was always intuitive like that, able to read my every emotion with a simple glance.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you to bed,” he soothes in a hushed voice. He moves to stand up then bends at the waist as he holds out his hand in an offer to help me up off the hard floor. Sitting here, I peer up at him through my disheveled hair, unable to miss the rock-hard erection jutting forward in my line of sight. All is fair in love and war. Plus, I want to taste and feel him on my tongue too, give him the same pleasure he just gave me. I want to breathe him in, break him, and watch him as he falls apart at my touch.
I ignore his outstretched hand and quickly get to my knees. Before he can process what hit him, I already have the entire length of his cock in my mouth, the softness of his head colliding with the back of my throat in one smooth move.
“Mother-fuck,” he hisses aloud. His body sways forward like a tree bending in strong winds, both his hands slamming to the concrete wall with a loud slap to keep his legs from buckling. I smile on the inside, gloating over my success of taking him by surprise. With both hands, I grab his ass cheeks then begin to guide his hips back and forth, forcing him to fuck my mouth. “Fuck… mother-fuck.” His sandpaper voice is rough and scratchy.
Every time I pull his hips forward, I make sure my lips hits the base of his cock, seating his length all the way to the back of my throat. My eyes begin to water, and then my gag reflex kicks in, because I’m not used to doing this. Thankfully, I’m able to keep the sound to a minimum and it goes unnoticed. I have to force myself to focus on breathing through my nose until I can get myself back under control. I push his hips back to suck in much need air, and then seductively run my tongue around his crown. When I flatten my tongue over his slit he curses aloud, and it makes me want to grin. I alternate between kneading and digging my fingers into the firm muscles of his ass.
My sex begins to throb again, wanting to be filled with nothing but Stryker. I’m so turned on I didn’t realize I had increased my suction around his girth, until Stryker cries out, “Fucking hell, you trying to suck my balls through my dick?” He hisses out of control.
I love the feel of his thick glutes flexing underneath my touch, and I fantasize about the vision I had of his backside when he was in the shower not fifteen minutes ago. I close my eyes and revel in the familiar scent, taste, and feel of Stryker. Neither one of us forgot each other’s body. I inhale, wanting to fill my lungs with his musky scent. This moment feels dreamlike; I can’t believe Stryker is right here before me and totally at my mercy as I possess his body. He hisses above me again, his body slick with remnants of shower water and sweat.
“I’m not gonna last, babe,” he says hoarsely. I want to grin around his cock in self-satisfaction, but instead, I focus on teasing him one last time as I bring the head to the front of my mouth, torturing him by twirling, nipping, and sucking on the tip of his dick in a hungry frenzy. Slipping one hand between his legs, I slip my fingers between his ass cheeks, nearing his puckered hole. I taunt him with the prospect of me slipping a finger inside.
“Whoa, now,” his says, his voic
e holding a panicked edge to it.
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Stryker?” I tease.
“There’s no adventure to be had back there. That, I’ll guarantee you.” His ass cheeks clench together, warding me off.
“Pussy,” I murmur over his length, before he slides to the back of my throat again. It’s going to take some time for me to warm him up to that idea. Instead, I cradle the weight of his balls in my hand and gently roll and squeeze them. I use all my suctioning power to force him to meet my demands and deep-throat me.
Erotic sounds echo off the bathroom walls as he loses himself to me, pumping himself fiercely into my throat as I allow him to fuck my mouth with abandon. “Oh, fuck… Valerie,” he growls my name as one of his hands grabs for a handful of my hair. “I’m coming hard,” he warns in a tight rasp, just in case I want to back off, but I don’t want to. “Ohhh… shiiit.” I feel the first spurt of his warm seed hit the back of my throat, his thick shaft pulsating against my tongue.
I hum my approval, and in a ravenous, greedy craze, he breathes in labored gasps, “Mother-fucking hell.” His grip tightens in my hair, making my scalp prickle. I’m loving every second of this moment, him at my mercy, making him mine.
His hip movement goes stiff and jerky as I swallow the last of his cum. Ragged and indistinct curse words drift over my head, as I slow down my pace. “Holy fuck.” His faint words are barely audible. I could suck on him all night long. I want to run my tongue up and down his hard shaft until he’s ready to go again, but he has other plans. He takes a small step backward, breaking our connection, his cock leaving the warmth of my mouth as he pulls away.
Before I can peer up at him in disappointment, two strong arms come into view, his hands sliding underneath my armpits to lift me effortlessly to my feet. The look in his eyes is so piercing and intense I find myself needing to look away. Two fingers rest underneath my chin as he forces me to meet his gaze. “Don’t,” he says in a serious tone.
“Don’t what?” I shakily whisper.
“Don’t turn away from me, from us. I can see the reality of what we just did is now hitting you, but don’t shut me out. Don’t dismiss this leap forward that we both took together.”
“I….” I stumble for words, but he doesn’t; he never has. He’s always been smooth, self-confident, and in control. His multicolored eyes melt at my determination of wanting to keep him at arm's length.
“I’m not letting you slip through my fingers again,” his says, his voice full of resolution.
“Stryker,” I start off, but he takes me by surprise and pulls me into his strong embrace, wrapping his arms tightly around me like he’s not willing to let me go. One hand clasps the back of my head as he presses my ear against his chest, the furious beating of his heart thumping against my cheek, making me realize he’s never going to give up on making us an us now that he’s found me again.
“One day at a time, Valerie. That’s the way we’re gonna work this, because there’s no way in hell you’re shutting us down, not when we just found each other again. Mark my words, we will build back what we had before, and then surpass it.”
I can barely shake my head in his vice grip to refute him. He presses my head farther into his hard muscle, as if holding me tighter will keep me from disagreeing with him. I don’t know what to say, what to do.
“Valerie,” his voice pleads, almost cracking, but still full of determination, “we will keep us intact.” It’s obvious there’s no arguing with him. His mind is made up. “We will work through the past, live through the present, and dream for our future, and we will do it together.”
I close my eyes against the whirlwind of inner turmoil ripping through me; he’s shredding me to pieces. Do I want Stryker again? Of course I do. I never once stopped loving him. But how do I trust him again?
As I stand here in his steely embrace, soaking in his warmth and words of promise, I’m wondering about my own double-standards. How much would he trust me if he ever found out about the things I was keeping from him? A pang of guilt hits me, my chest constricting with remorse.
If Stryker stumbles upon pieces of my past, it’d only be a matter of time before he’d be able to uncover the truth, because he’s keenly perceptive. Then he will quickly discover just how criminal I’ve been. Then I will lose him forever. I’m going to have to keep my guard up at all times, being extra careful not to let anything slip.
I’ve learned that no matter how deep one buries their skeletons, there’s always one bone that will eventually… inevitably… come to the surface.
Because if he only knew.
CHAPTER 29
~ Stryker ~
She really did fuck with my head after our breakup, and I’m trying like hell to get back into her good graces for the sake of this undercover op, all without bringing the messy emotions of my heart into the mix. At times, I find myself having to bite my tongue when crass comments come to mind. Other times, I feel as if my sanity is on the line, because I think I’m falling in love with her all over again. Truth be told, maybe I never stopped. How does one fall out of love, especially when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt she’s my soul mate? I know this, because no one before or after her has ever made me feel the way I do when I’m with her.
It has, however, taken a real conscious effort to push aside my deep resentment over our unresolved past and not bring it up. The unspoken tension between us is wound tighter than a cow in spandex, and it’s as if one of us could snap at any moment.
Of course, my dick has been much more forgiving, because the son-of-a-bitch apparently has no limitations when it comes to her. I’m actually surprised I made it through the first night we spent together without having to sneak off and take care of business. The reason I didn’t was because Val had opened up to me, and it sparked a melancholy mood. All she wanted from me was to feel cared for, and holding her in my arms gave her that.
I had a lot of personal shit on my mind, too. I was worrying about my sister, wondering if she was being properly taken care of or not. The main thing that concerns me is her unceasing labored breathing that nobody seems to want to address. It’s not like her to want to stay in bed until noon every day, and that’s making me feel uneasy more than anything. It’s not good for her, or anyone for that matter, to be sedentary for too long. I guess I will always feel this sense of responsibility for her wellbeing. Even if I hadn’t promised my dad that I’d watch over her, I would’ve done it anyway. It’s what family does—we stick together through thick and thin.
Working this mission has definitely kept my mind busy from focusing on all the worries I left back home, but being around Valerie has made for some serious sexual tension between us. It had already been running at an all-time high since the Local Edge. It was not one of my brighter ideas when I bribed her into my bed, but at the time, I was thinking about the different strategies I could implement to melt down her defenses. Little did I know I had written a prescription for failure, because my genius plan to get her closer to me backfired, and my dick hit a breaking point.
By the middle of the night, I couldn’t take her close proximity any longer. The sexy curves of her ass had been pressing against my groin for hours, and worse, she’d constantly shift and writhe in her sleep, forcing the underside of her breasts to rub against my forearm. I had broken out into a cold sweat, trying to tamp down my arousal, but it was damned impossible.
My mind became restless, bombarded with sexual thoughts of Valerie’s perky tits and me slipping myself between her thighs. She drove me fucking insane. That bed was so damn old just looking the wrong way caused the springs to screech out in the night, so I had to painstakingly extract myself from the warmth of her sexy body, praying to God I didn’t wake her.
By the time I caught her watching me jack off in the shower to thoughts of her, I had lost all self-restraint. I could no longer wait for her to make the first move, but I could at least hold out on her. I could wait until she drove herself insane with the
need to have me inside her. I’m fairly certain by the end of this trip she’d be begging for my cock.
A shiver of bittersweet pride rolls through me as I think about how she let me take control last night in the shower-room. Not like she had much choice in the matter, though. I was gonna have her coming apart at the seams one way or another, and she sure as hell did just that.
Since coming to Panama, my brain has not once turned off. Both Hunter and I are constantly looking over our shoulders, not knowing what to expect, waiting for something to unfold, and praying it’s something we can handle. It’s been frustrating to try and sort out the level of Valerie’s involvement, if any. She’s a puzzle that refuses to unravel. We keep waiting for either woman to unknowingly slip up in some sort of fashion, but they’ve got their shit locked down tight.
I haven’t asked much, if anything, about her dead husband. If I did, then I’d have to address the fact she married him in the first place, when she should’ve been mine. Pretty fucked up, I know. But just thinking about her past marriage starts to pump venom through my veins.
Surprisingly, we were given a couple hours reprieve for lunch today. I’m sitting out back behind the school, where I met Hunter yesterday. It’s quiet and peaceful, and most importantly away from everyone. I’ve taken the opportunity to jump on my mini laptop and check up on things back home, including writing a short email to my sister. Since there is no Wi-Fi here, I’m having to use my own hotspot, and it’s pretty sketchy.
“There you are,” Valerie says, coming up from behind me. “I couldn’t find you.”
“Ssh,” I whisper, then motion for her to approach slowly.
“What’s going on?” she whispers back.
I shift my eyes her way then nod at the top left corner of my laptop. “Little sucker’s been watching me and preening itself for the past ten minutes. Never had a dragonfly get this close to me and decide to stay.” It’s been really cool to study it, and odd thing is, it appeared to be studying me back the entire time. I’ve been watching all its iridescent colors shimmer against the afternoon sun, and for some reason, it gave me a sense of peace.