by Kit Rocha
She rolled her hips, grinding on his lap in a move worthy of a Broken Circle dancer. "That depends, I guess."
He had to force his hands to relax, to hold her hips lightly. "On?"
"How long you can take it." Another roll, and this time it was her teeth on his earlobe, the barest tease as her fingernails pricked his scalp. "How long you can grope and grind and let me touch you before you'll do whatever it takes to get in me?"
His dick swelled, but shifting beneath her didn't relieve the pressure. It made him harder. "Take off your shirt."
She lifted her head long enough to grin at him, wild and unrestrained, her eyes dancing. "No," she said, and leaned in to nip at his other ear. Her breath raced across his skin as her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "But you can rip it off."
Too easy. Bren twisted his hand in the fabric and pulled it up slowly, stopping just before the ribbed cotton slipped off the hard peaks of her nipples.
She hissed in a breath--and hissed it out when that rubbed the fabric against her breasts. Shuddering, she pressed her next openmouthed kiss to his throat.
He flicked her nipple through the cotton. "Can't take it?"
"Whatever," she growled, and closed her teeth on his throat.
Not hard enough, not yet. Bren urged her hips closer to his and rocked her against his erection until she shuddered, her teeth clamping down on his skin.
Yes.
"Show me how you'd fuck me," he invited.
She lifted her head and caught the back of the chair before rocking up, rolling her hips in a slow, taunting grind as she stared into his eyes. "Like this. Slow. Because you're big, and I love that feeling when you're first pushing into me."
He could fuck her like that, withdrawing with every stroke just so he could drive into her all over again. "Can you feel my piercings when I'm in you?"
"I feel something..." Her eyelids drooped as she gave a little shiver. "When you had me on my stomach on the couch that night, every damn thrust felt like coming all over again."
Her nipple tightened even more under his thumb, as if merely saying the words turned her on. "Your G-spot, sweetness."
She frowned and studied him through narrowed eyes. "I thought that was a story guys made up so they could talk you into bending over a table."
"I'll show you." He twisted his hand slowly, until he could catch her nipple between his thumb and index finger in a hard pinch. "I'll fuck it until you come all over me."
Her mouth dropped open on a silent moan, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "I'll come faster if you keep talking," she whispered, the words as unsteady as the sudden rocking of her hips.
He wasn't usually a man of many words, but motivation like that had a way of changing things. "You know what to do, Six."
Breathing heavily, she jerked her shirt out of his hands in her haste to haul it over her head.
Bren caught a lock of her hair as it tumbled down her bare back. "Are you wet?" He tugged sharply. "Tell me."
"You wanna know if you get me hot?" She reached for his shirt next. "You do. Sometimes just by breathing."
It was a different sort of power, a need that transcended obedience. "I don't need submission, not the way you think of it. This is better."
Her fingers fanned wide on his chest as she stilled her squirming and stared down at him. "You don't want to own my body," she said, the words hesitant, almost a question. "You want me to give it to you, every damn time."
The expression of gentle wonder made his dick ache. "Every time."
"Because it belongs to me." She scratched him, streaking gentle lines of pain in her wake. "It's mine."
"Yours." He pulled open the button and the zipper on her pants and urged the fabric down, off her ass. "Give it to me."
"Tell me what you're gonna do with it," she challenged. "It better be dirty. It better be filthy."
"Here? Fuck you 'til you can't breathe." He squeezed her ass. "But I talked to Ace."
"Yeah?"
Casual, too casual for the way she squirmed over him. "Yeah. We can show you a little pain, sweetness. Mine and yours, if you want it."
"Will it turn you on for me to watch?" she demanded breathlessly. She freed her hands from his shirt only to slide them up his arms, fingers digging into muscle. "Would it turn you on if I let you fuck me in front of him? He couldn't help, not with the fucking. I only give my body to you."
Excitement edged her voice, and Bren shuddered. She'd be hot around him, gripping his cock, while Ace rained a different sort of heat on his back. Blow after blow, but the thing about the fantasy that truly rocked him was her hunger, her anticipation.
His pleasure would spark hers.
He kissed her, dragging her mouth to his with a groan. Her pants were in the way, and he had to lift her to push them down and kick the denim free. The chair wobbled as she crashed down against him again and snatched at his shirt.
She jerked at it hard enough to tear a seam, snarling in frustration until he helped her take it off, then guided her hands to his pants. She fumbled with his belt, her fingers trembling, but then she had it open and his fly down and she moaned as she closed her hand around his cock, like she was already imagining him inside her.
Bren groaned and wrapped his hand over hers, squeezing her fist around him. "Now?"
"Now," she echoed, leaning close enough to kiss him. "Take my body. I'm giving it to you."
Open and wet, so eager that one thrust took him all the way inside her. He froze, her hips clutched to his, as her head fell back and her lips parted.
She didn't speak, but the hands that settled on his shoulders, fingernails digging in, said plenty. She clung to him and squirmed, her throat working, her eyes clenched shut. "Like this," she whispered. "I love this part. When all I can feel is you."
Her body surrounded his, warm and inviting. He released her, letting his hands fall to his sides as she squirmed harder. "Push me."
It took forever for her to lift her head and meet his gaze, and even longer before she began to move. Just a slow, experimental rock at first, her eyes unfocused. "I figured something out."
His voice came out hoarse. "What's that?"
"I don't give a shit what I'm supposed to want." She rose up on her toes only to drop down hard enough to drive moans from them both. "I've never let anyone tell me what to do before. Why should sex be different?"
"Good girl." He tilted her hips with one hand at the small of her back, and she sucked in a breath and clutched at his upper arms until her nails broke skin.
"I was going to come up with fantasies," she continued unsteadily, "but I kinda just have the same one over and over."
He couldn't really slam into her without lifting her and taking over her movements entirely, but he thrust up once, sending the chair skidding a few inches across the floor.
This time she whimpered, scratching down to his elbows before gripping his arms as if to hold them both still. Her gaze found his, eyes already hazy with pleasure and so trusting, so open.
She held nothing back, not with her eyes or her words. "In my fantasy, I ask you to make me feel good. That's all. Because I trust you, and whatever you do with me, you'll make it feel good."
The words jolted through him in a shiver. "How far will you go, Six?"
"What does far even mean?" Her hands framed his face, and she smoothed her thumb over his lower lip. "Nothing you could do would take more trust than me bringing you here. This was my safe place, and I'm giving it up. I don't need it anymore."
"Are you sure?"
She bit his lower lip with a laughing growl. "About this place, or what you can do to me?"
"I'm serious." He stilled her head with one hand wrapped in her hair. "Keep it if you need to."
After a torturous moment, she nodded as much as his grip allowed. "Okay, but not because I need to. Because we'll be here, working, and it'll be nice to have a private place for just us."
Us. She'd talked so much about all the parts of his life he was
letting her into, and this was hers, the only thing she had to share with him.
Bren kissed her again, his mouth crashing into hers as he dragged her down for another hard thrust. The chair cracked, and he staggered to his feet as it gave way under them.
He backed her up to the wall instead, hitching her high against the paneling with her legs around his waist. She slammed her head back with a choked noise, digging her heels into his thighs. "Make me--make me feel--" Another groan. "Oh God, Bren--"
"Shh. Your safe place," he panted, closing one hand loosely around her throat. "Right here, with me."
"Safe." Six stopped trying to move, stopped trying to force him to move. She twisted her arms around his neck and shuddered in his grasp. "Show me."
He tightened his hand, just enough to cut off part of her air as he sped his thrusts, pounding her pussy until he was gritting his teeth against slick pleasure.
And through it all her gaze never left his. Trust, naked trust, so much of it she let him take her to the edge, to where her body clenched tight and her lips parted on a silent scream, and then she was coming, hard, the orgasm abrupt and intense.
He jerked his hand away from her throat to slam against the wall. One ragged breath and she was screaming, screaming, loud enough to cut through the roar of blood pounding in his ears. He followed her over the edge, thrusting until he was spent, and the desperate grip of her pussy eased into gentle flutters.
She slumped forward, limp, and mumbled something against his throat. He combed her hair from her face and tilted her head back. "You with me?"
"I don't know," she whispered, blinking at him a couple times before her eyes drifted shut. "Are you somewhere tingly?"
Not dizzy from lack of oxygen, then, but drunk on pleasure. "We broke your chair."
"Buy me a better one." She let her head fall forward again and nuzzled his cheek with a laugh. "Buy me one sturdy enough for you, you hulking lug. I'm gonna ride you on it all the time."
"Home away from home?"
"Will you buy me a real bed?"
"I'll build it with my own two hands, if you want."
Her head popped up, and she smiled as if he'd offered her the world, gilded and wrapped in a bow. "You can build things?"
"Maybe." And for the first time in years, he felt like it might be true.
Chapter Thirteen
If Six had possessed a little less pride, it would have been tempting to let Bren tackle her to the floor just for the pleasure of feeling him stretched out over her, warm and hard and as turned on as she was.
Evading a feint and riding him to the floor was almost as good.
They hit the mats with a thud, her body astride his. His grin was quick, but not as quick as his movements as he flipped her over using sheer strength.
He was still grinning when she smacked her forehead into his nose.
Bren rolled away, rubbing his nose. "You might want to save that move as a last resort."
"Sorry." Wincing, she scrambled to her knees and reached for his face. "It's a bad habit. I know you've taught me new ones, but sometimes instinct gets me."
He let her poke and prod at his nose for a moment before waving her away. "I'm all right. Nothing's broken."
She dropped her hands to rest on her lap. "I've got to get new instincts. Right now, I'm fine until you startle me, and then it's like I'm fifteen again, breaking noses and trying to ram a guy's balls into his rib cage."
"That won't fly if you're working the door at the Broken Circle."
It wouldn't, and she knew it. She'd expected Bren's acknowledgment to be disheartening, but there was a thrilling sort of focus in having a goal. It gave her the energy to shake off the discomfort and rock to her feet. "So I do it again."
He stretched his neck and squared his shoulders. "First lesson--don't let things get to the point where you have to headbutt someone. Try to stop the trouble before it starts."
Zan was good at that, but he was huge and had a face that made his scowls extra intimidating. She'd have to be better. Quicker, more efficient. "Show me?"
Bren shook his head. "It's about control. You're the bouncer, so you have it, and you can't ever forget that. You have to breathe it."
Like him. "Have you always been able to do it, or did you learn?"
He took his time answering. "I didn't come from a place where many people had control over anything. I guess I learned it once I joined up."
The story of how he'd gone from a street orphan to the ranks of the most terrifying elite soldiers in their world was one she desperately wanted to know, but the way he mentioned it made her think it had to be as laced with pain as her own history.
She knew what it was like to not want to talk, but just as familiar was the certainty that no one cared enough to listen. So she settled on a middle route, inviting him to talk without pushing. "The MP, you mean?"
"It was Coop's idea," Bren murmured. "Said it was the best way to make something out of my life. So he fronted me the cash for a bar code and a brand-new identity."
"How old were you?"
"On paper? Eighteen. But I don't really know."
All those times she'd joked about him being old, and he didn't even know how old he was. Her chest ached as she shifted closer, until they were knee-to-knee. "What was it like, being in the military police?"
"Structured," he said thoughtfully. "There's comfort in that, I suppose, especially for a kid from the streets. I always knew where to go, what to do. What was expected of me, and what I'd get in return."
"You got to learn things." She couldn't quite keep the hunger out of her voice. The hacked tablet Noelle had given her made it easier to work her way through books, but now the struggle was to focus on learning the words at all when listening to the tablet's soothing female voice was so much easier.
"Yeah," he said wryly. "I learned the art of assassination. The most effective silent kills. How to line up a two-mile sniper shot, accounting for wind shift. Your basic Special Tasks education."
"How to be strong," she countered. "How to hurt evil bastards, so they can't hurt anyone else. How to be a protector."
"No." Bren's smile held a tinge of sadness as he reached out and ran his fingers over an escaped lock of her hair. "All those things, I learned right here in Sector Four."
She wanted to turn her face into his hand and kiss his palm, but she couldn't look away from his eyes. "So teach them to me. I don't have to fight for survival anymore, but I can protect people."
His smile widened, and he brushed his thumb over her cheek. "You'll be better at it than I've ever been. Just wait."
Biting back her smile, she gave him her sternest look. "So stop being mushy, Donnelly, and throw me around this room."
"Yes, ma'am." He climbed to his feet and stretched again. "Want to come at me? Want me to come at you?"
She bounced to her feet, to her toes, watching him warily. He could lunge into sudden movement without the slightest tensing muscle to give warning, but sometimes she caught tiny hints in the crinkling around his eyes or the set of his mouth. "I wanna see that arm lock one more time."
"Oh yeah?"
If it had been anyone else, she would have asked if he was ready. But Bren was always ready, and when she came at him, driving hard for his ribs, he swatted her wrist, knocking it aside without apparent effort.
He must have slowed the progression down so she could see it, but it still happened so fast. His wrist slid up to slam against the inside of her elbow, forcing her arm to bend as he twisted behind her, somehow getting his other arm threaded through hers and his hands linked together.
A few seconds, that was all it took for her to end up against his chest, her arm bent out to her side at an awkward angle, her wrist trapped in the crook of his elbow and his other hand gripping her shoulder.
It would take very little force to drive her to the floor now, and even less to cause so much pain that she'd beg to end up there. But he hadn't thrown a single punch, hadn't smashed his no
se into anyone's face. He'd simply moved to take control of the situation--and her--with minimum fuss.
Quick, efficient, deadly.
It turned her on.
She inhaled slowly and tested the limited range of motion she had within the lock. "I bet you could move a pretty big guy with this."
He increased the pressure, but only the tiniest bit. "He'll go where you point him, all right."
Easy to believe, since she was up on her toes, her fingers twitching, as if her body was ready to tap out whether she wanted to or not. "Do you think I can pull this off on someone a lot taller than me?"
"There are other locks that might work better for you." He released her and rubbed her shoulder. "We'll go over them."
"Okay," she murmured, distracted by the warmth of his fingers soothing away the lingering ache.
His eyes darkened, and his fingers slowed to a sensual caress. "Six--"
Someone rapped on the door, the hollow sound still echoing as it swung wide, and Emma poked her head in, dark and bleached-blonde locks swinging. "Amira's having her baby!"
Instead of taking a step back, Bren pulled Six into the circle of his arm. "How long?"
"What do I look like, a fucking psychic? It's a baby, Donnelly, not a shipment of booze." She slammed the door behind her.
Six laughed, and it didn't even feel awkward anymore. "Unless your Doc has some fancy city tricks, it's probably going to be a while."
"Christ help him if Flash starts getting pissed." He kissed the top of her head. "First O'Kane baby. Want to go wait with everyone else?"
Her wrists were still bare, but with Lex's offer on the table, Six didn't feel nearly as hesitant to take him up on it. She'd have her ink soon. She'd be one of them in a way outsiders would have to acknowledge, a way no one could take from her.
For now, the fact that they included her was enough. Hell, it was everything. "Yeah, let's go."
The first time Flash punched Doc, Jasper had to go in to run interference.
Bren would have volunteered, but his experience with pain and blood was far less helpful than Jas's years on the farm, where he'd assisted with numerous births. No, Bren was better off with the others, gathered around the makeshift bar in the warehouse, waiting for news.