by S. M. Butler
Her hand continued to stroke him as she kissed and licked down his body. Each stroke wound him up more. He’d never expected the vixen this woman was when he’d first seen her picture. The way she’d talked to him… He’d never been one for dirty talk before, but her words had wound him tighter than a music box.
The second her tongue touched the tip of his cock, he groaned and fisted the sheets to keep from grabbing her head. She slid a mischievous gaze to him, smirking as she hovered over his sex. “Is that what you want?” As she dipped her tongue onto him again, he let out something that almost sounded like a bark. She chuckled. “Not so confident now, are you?”
“I’m plenty confident,” he replied, not feeling like it at all. “I’m confident that your mouth feels amazing on my cock.”
She ran her tongue up the side of his shaft. His entire body shuddered. “I haven’t put my mouth on you yet. Just my tongue.” She hadn’t, had she? Her long hair tickled his thigh as she shifted her body so she had a better angle to stroke him so agonizingly slowly he was afraid he’d catch the sheets on fire when he self-combusted on the spot.
“Come here,” he demanded, reaching for her.
She shook her head, avoiding his grasp. “No, it’s my turn to play.”
And play she did. As soon as her lips slid over his dick, he was lost to reality. Her chestnut hair tickled his thighs. Warmth and wetness surrounded him. He moaned, his eyes rolling up. He tilted his head back as she fucked him with her mouth because if he looked at her now, he was going to lose it.
She inched her mouth down his shaft, pressing down more and more with each bob of her head. She circled her tongue over and around the tip. When her hand cupped his balls, he very nearly came right then.
No more. He couldn’t take this torture anymore.
He pulled her up his body, her mouth coming off his cock with a light pop. She protested with a mewl, but he silenced her with a punishing kiss as she straddled him. He stroked her wet flesh with a single finger, then two before he lined his cock up and thrust up into her body again.
She threw her head back, breaking the kiss as he filled her delectable body and let out a deliciously sinful moan that he swore rocked the entire room. Her back arched, as if in invitation. He cupped both breasts and played with her nipples as she rode him. He was impossibly deep inside her warmth and she used long, deep movements that drove him insane with lust.
“Tell me what you want,” she said, mirroring his earlier words while putting her hands on his chest to steady herself.
“Fuck me, darlin’,” he told her. “Fuck me to death, will you? Let me go happy into whatever afterlife waits for me.”
As she slammed down on him, he pressed his hips up to meet her, thrust for thrust. It wasn’t long before he felt that familiar tingle in his balls. That seizing tension in his body as he approached his climax. He didn’t want to come before she had her next one though. He promised her at least three more times, after all.
“Finger yourself,” he said as he played with her nipples. “I want to see you make yourself come on my cock.”
She did as she was told, her hand sliding down her body, her fingers dipping between her legs. She spread herself farther, continuing to ride him as she fingered her clit and he massaged her breasts.
The sight was too much for him. As she brought herself to completion, squeezing his cock inside her, he lost all semblance of control. He moaned so loud it echoed in the room and then pressed his hips up, trying to get as deep as he could inside her as he came.
She collapsed on his chest, his softening cock still inside her heated body.
He ran his hands over her back, feeling the soft dampness of her skin. They were both sweaty and overheated. It had been a long time since he’d come so hard with a woman. Not since… He pushed the thought right out. Penny was nothing like that woman. She was good. Not a rich, psychopathic bitch bent on payback.
Instead, he concentrated on the woman before him with the chestnut curls. He brushed her hair to the side so he could see her face, even if it was to reassure himself that it was her and not anyone else on his mind. “You good?”
She glanced at him. Her face almost seemed to glow in the darkness. She was the moonlight in the midst of his night. She nodded. “You?”
“Never been better,” he lied. She looked nothing like Marie. Her skin was tanner, her complexion smoother except for a couple of little freckles scattered around. She’d spent some time in the sun in her past, which was another thing that was different than Marie. That woman had preferred the night life.
“I can’t move,” she said, her breath ragged and hard.
“It’s okay.” He wrapped his arms around her and readjusted them so she was at his side. He groaned as his cock slipped out of her body, spent and content against his thigh. “We can just stay here for a bit.”
Her arm slid over him, her head resting against his chest. Her eyes closed as she let out a sigh. “Sounds good. I think all that alcohol is finally getting to me.”
He kissed the top of her head and stared up at the ceiling. It had been months since he’d had sex with anyone. The missions had been one after the other lately. But even so… He’d never had a woman who matched him and his energy so well.
It was as if they were made for sex together.
7
Later that night, Jordan’s eyes popped open, panic bursting to the forefront of his mind as his mind registered the person in the bed with him. But as he heard the soft snores from Penny sleeping next to him, calm pressed down the anxiety. He’d actually fallen asleep with another person in the room. Gently, he turned his body so he could see her. She was still naked, but now she was under the covers, burrowed deep into them like they were a protective cocoon.
Was she protecting herself from him, he wondered. God knew, she needed it. Gently, he ran the backs of his fingers along her cheek, reveling briefly in the soft freckled skin, before he carefully pulled himself out of bed.
Swiping a set of boxers from his duffel, he put them on and went to the bathroom. Avoiding the mirror, he took care of business and steeled himself. He closed his eyes, breathing in and out through his nose. He wished there was another way to do this, another way to get access to the vault room in the back of the gallery without using Penny. But they’d gone through all the possibilities in the briefing. Beyond taking Reilly’s eye and thumb, there wasn’t another way. Penny’s keycard was the only other way to get anywhere close to that vault room. Though she didn’t have access to it specifically, she had access to the outer vault, where the art was stored. Which was why it had to be her.
He snuck out of the bedroom, keeping his footfalls light as he stepped across the suite’s sitting area to the door, where Penny’s purse hung on the coat rack, next to his jacket. He swallowed hard as he took the card reader from his jacket and hooked it up to his phone, which had been in the other pocket.
As he unzipped her purse, his heart raced, expecting Penny any second to step out of the bedroom and find him. He kept one eye on the bedroom door while he found the lanyard he knew was attached to the keycard. As the piece of plastic came free of the purse, he swallowed hard.
This was it. This would be how it would end, this magical night. And it had been magical. For once in his life, he’d found someone who could equal him, both in mind and sexually. Someone beside whom he felt comfortable falling asleep. But he couldn’t have her. Not after this.
He almost didn’t get the card into the reader; his hands were shaking far too much. The red light turned on, sensing the insertion of the card and the machine went to work. Within a few seconds, the light turned green, the signal that the data from the keycard had been copied. He removed the card and slid the card back into her purse and zipped it all back up, nice and neatly.
He stared at the reader as it continued to blink at him, waiting for him to copy the data onto Sierra’s network. Once it was uploaded, he would be able to access it from his lab in the lair, wher
e he’d make a perfect duplicate to use to get into the vault. The thing was--and this was why he was the real bastard--Reilly would trace the use of the duplicate back to her. She’d be blindsided, without an answer… and he hoped that Reilly would just fire her and not take more serious action. Reilly had to be purposely leaving her ignorant of his real businesses, letting her run that little gallery for him while he ran his more illegal enterprises.
She’d still hate him, though. Because she was smart, and she’d figure out that Jordan was the only one who might have been able to gain access to that which she was never supposed to lose sight. There would be no coming back to Penny once he did this.
He typed the command to send it to Sierra, though he hovered over the send button. Could he do this to someone who had no idea what would happen to her? He didn’t have a choice here, right? He’d signed on the dotted line. He had to do what the Company wanted him to do. This was his job, and Bridget Muldoon would have a damn good reason to want it done this way, right?
Was he seriously justifying this?
Like all those years ago, getting involved would end in betrayal. His betrayal. All because someone else demanded it. His life wasn’t his own. It wasn’t even clear if it ever was. Before his life was Nathan’s, it had belonged to his father. He’d done horrible things under his father’s thumb, things that he’d hoped that he’d never have to do with Nathan. But here he was, in the midst of the seduction of another woman, taking her to bed so he could get what he wanted from her.
He slammed his thumb on the send button, watching the data upload onto the network. Seconds later, it flashed its completion. He unhooked everything once it had finished.
Done. Over.
His chest constricted and twisted inside as he stowed the thing back in his jacket.
He glanced back at the bedroom. If he was smart, he’d pack everything up now and leave. Ghost. Like he was supposed to do. Instead, he found his feet traveling back to the bedroom. The light behind him illuminated her face, like she was heaven sent. Divinity at her best. The bright light of the sun, burning into his eyes.
Slowly, as quietly as he could, he shut himself in the room with her and slid back into bed with her. Propping his head up, he traced the soft lines of her face. There were no hard angles on her. Everything was beautifully rounded. He brushed the loose hair from her sleeping face. She moaned something he didn’t catch and shifted, losing the rest of the covers and revealing her beautiful body.
The truth was… he had lost his taste for the work he did now. For the work he’d done before becoming a Reaper. Maybe if he’d been like Bea or Jack, he could have killed Penny and spared her the pain of what she would eventually have to go through. But he didn’t even carry a real gun, for fuck’s sake. He hadn’t ever, not since his father split. That was the last time and it would be forever more.
He settled in behind her, pulling her ass against his boxers even as his cock woke up. With a sleepy moan, she pressed back against him. “Jordan…”
He couldn’t dwell on the job anymore. He’d done the thing and there was no going back. If nothing else, he could atone for his crime. He could make her feel good, the best she’d ever felt. He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed another condom as her hand stroked his erection.
“Want you…” she whispered sleepily, a soft smile playing at her dusty pink lips, her eyes still closed.
“You have me,” he replied, surprised at the truth in that statement. He pushed off the boxers and slid the condom on. As he slipped between her cheeks, her legs opened for him. “For as long as you want.”
“I want you,” she breathed out, her body arching against his, like she was seeking him out.
He’d have given her anything and everything she wanted if he could. But he owned nothing. He had nothing. Nothing but his body to give her, and even that belonged to someone else.
He shifted them so she was on her stomach. As he settled between her legs, he ran his hands over her ass as he leaned over her. “Do you want me, Penny?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Fuck me, Jordan.”
He kissed along her shoulder blade as he wrapped an arm around her waist and hoisted her up to her knees. This moment between them, having her now… it would have to be enough. Stroking his covered cock, he angled his erection and slid home into her body with a long groan of ecstasy. She pushed back against him. She was so wet that there was no resistance to his entry.
He held on to her luscious hips and fucked her from behind, with long, easy strokes. He kept one hand on her hip and the other on her clit, stroking her as he fucked that beautiful body, listening to the melody of her moans as they grew louder. He knew the exact moment when she came. Her walls clamped down around his cock, so impossibly tight it was hard to thrust into her. Her hands curled into tight fists on the sheets.
As she trembled and shuddered her way through another orgasm, he worked her until she slumped down. Then he left the warmth of her sex, tossed the condom, and then snuggled back into bed with her. He was still hard, still needed to come, but that was his punishment for deceiving her, for being a lying bastard. As a contented sigh left her full lips, she pushed closer to him and fell back asleep.
If he only had tonight with her, then he’d make sure she enjoyed herself.
~*~*~
The sunlight was starting to peek through the windows when Penny opened her eyes. The first thing she noticed was this wasn’t her apartment. The next thing was that she wasn’t alone. A hard body was at her back and strong arms held her against a wall of warmth. And the monster of all headaches slammed right between her eyes.
Fuck. Hangovers were a bitch.
A soft sigh left her lips as the memories of the night replayed in her head. The man knew his way around a woman’s body, that was for sure. She’d lost track of how many orgasms she’d had. He was singularly focused, singularly intent on her pleasure, like his didn’t even matter. She remembered he had come a few times during the night and in the interim as he recovered, he’d pleasured her with his mouth, his hands…
In another period of her life, maybe she would have liked to explore this with him. They had some kind of sexual chemistry together, didn’t they? For a moment, she let herself relax into him. She had to get up soon. Already the sun was rising and yep, according to the clock on the nightstand, it was already five forty-five. She had to be at work by eight and still needed to get home to change.
Carefully, she slipped out of his arms, freezing when he moaned unhappily, but he stayed asleep. So she slipped the rest of the way out of the bed and made the mistake of looking back. His body was on full display, his sculpted chest pulled inward as he lay on his side. Those hard ridges of his abs standing out even in the dimness of the room and that gorgeous cock, that had been inside her body a number of times, lying flaccid against his thigh.
Part of her wanted to call in and go back to bed with him. But she couldn’t. She had to go. A big shipment was being delivered today, for the next show.
Hunting down where her clothes had ended up, she found everything except her underwear. Though she made another effort to find it, when she kicked something furniture-like in the dark bedroom, she cursed inside her head and shot her gaze back to the man sleeping in the bed. He didn’t wake up, though he flipped onto his back.
She stopped, staring at him. She hadn’t really noticed the night before, but his chest was deeply scarred. Long, thin marks marred his golden skin, like a giant predator had slashed across his chest several times. Then there were smaller, more intricate scars, like someone used a knife like a paint brush. His chest was covered in tattoos as well, from just below his clavicle down to the wings of his hip bones, the design interwoven into the scars. It was pretty clear the scars had been there first.
She stopped herself as she took a step toward him. He’d been hesitant to take his shirt off the night before. Had that been why? Was he ashamed of those scars? Where had he gotten them?
She s
wallowed. She really didn’t know anything about Jordan, did she? He could have been a psychotic killer and she walked right into his hotel room like she hadn’t a care in the world. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t who she was.
She shook her head, balling her clothes against her body, and escaped to the bathroom to get dressed. Once she’d gotten dressed, she looked at the mirror. Twenty-one. She really didn’t feel all that different. Though her entire body hummed with sexual satisfaction from the night before, she was still herself. Nothing had changed.
What had she been expecting, a personality overhaul with the number change?
As she padded out of the bathroom, she realized her clutch was still in the living room, along with her shoes. She stared at the bed, her body singing with the desire to crawl back in there. But what good would that do, to wait until he woke up to do the awkward morning after where they had to say goodbye? Because this wasn’t going anywhere. She’d had her fun, now she needed to get back to being an adult.
Should she wake him up to say goodbye? She nixed that idea as soon as she had it. He’d probably try to convince her to stay for more mind-blowing sex, and she was weak enough that she’d probably do it. No, she just needed to get out and avoid the awkward goodbyes.
She walked over to the desk, keeping an eye on the bed for movement as she located a notepad and a pen. Quickly, she scribbled out a few words and took it over to the bed. She froze as she caught sight of him again. He was unapologetically sprawled across the bed now, like he was restless in sleep now that she was no longer there with him. His face was turned toward her, his brow furrowed as if his dreams displeased him.