by M. Leighton
Shifting into park, I cut the engine and head for the front door. Just as I’m raising my hand to knock, it swings open to reveal the very aloof face of Sig.
He says nothing as he stares at me and, for a moment, neither do I. I just look at him, take him in. He’s so beautiful, his eyes so rich and deep, his features so handsome and strong. He practically fills the entire doorway with his tall frame and wide shoulders. An involuntary shiver runs through me, one that registers a small frown on his brow.
He takes a step back and tips his head for me to come in, so I do. I stop just inside the front door, looking around his barely-there living room, which consists of an olive-green couch and matching recliner, a coffee table and a big screen television mounted to the back wall, and then the tiny kitchen that opens onto it. I see a few boxes stacked against one wall, but certainly not enough to contain all that would be needed to fill up this space.
“Still getting settled?” I ask.
“I travel light,” is his only response. He closes the door and then comes around in front of me, crossing his arms over his chest. “As flattered as I am that you’re concerned over my state of unpacking, I seriously doubt it brought you all the way over here.”
I laugh uneasily. “No, it didn’t. I, uh, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Another frown. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I shrug with one shoulder. “Since I didn’t see you when I left Lance’s this morning, I wanted to make sure you didn’t get in trouble for not sticking with me.”
“How can I get in trouble when you took off?”
Again, I shrug. “Lance is unpredictable.”
“I told you that you don’t have to worry about me.”
“I know, I know,” I say, looking down at the shaggy beige carpet and digging at it with the toe of my ratty Vans. “I wish I could not worry about you.”
I see big boots enter my field of vision and then a finger touches my chin, bringing my gaze up to his. There is still some aggravation in his eyes, but now they hold tenderness and heat and…possessiveness, so much so that they take my breath away.
“I’m not a sadist, but I actually like that you worry.” One side of his mouth twitches up into a lopsided grin. “I just wish you weren’t so damn slippery.”
“Slippery?”
“Hell yeah. I can’t get a bead on you.”
“You know how a woman loves her mystery,” I say, nonchalant.
“You may, but I don’t. I want to know what’s going on behind those eyes, what’s going on inside that beautiful head.” His voice is soft now, his touch whisper-light as he brushes the back of his finger along my jawline.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Oh, but I do. I want to know. I want to know you.”
“I told you–”
“I know what you told me. I’ve heard every word you’ve said. The problem is, it doesn’t make any difference. I care about you, Tommi. I care about what happens to you, what you’re going through. I care that you don’t smile much. I care that you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, but you won’t tell me why or let me help. I care that you put yourself through awful shit for reasons that I don’t understand. Because I know you don’t give a rat’s ass about Tonin.”
“That’s not true,” I begin, rushing to disabuse him of his very accurate observations. “I–”
“Stop it!” he snaps, but not unkindly. It just seems that he’s as tired of my lies as I am. “You don’t have to lie to me. I’d rather you not answer, I’d rather you not say a damn word than to lie to me.”
I search his eyes. For what I don’t know. All I find is sincerity. “All right then. No more lies.”
“Good,” he says, exhaling, his breath ruffling the hair at my temples that has escaped my up-do. “That’s a start. Now if I can just make some progress elsewhere.” He rolls his eyes and sighs in exaggerated frustration.
“Like where?” I ask, trying not to smile. For some reason, he just makes me feel light. And happy. And carefree. Only I’m not. I’m about as not carefree as they come.
“Like you trusting me. Like you opening up a little.”
“I told you–”
“I know, I know, but I think you’re caving. Bit by bit.”
“You do? And why is that?”
“Well, let’s see. You’re here at my house without a gun to your head.”
This time I do smile. “As far as I can recall, I’ve never been to your house with a gun to my head either.”
“See? Caving. That’s progress,” he says, taking a step even closer. His hand moves down to my left shoulder, which is bared by the stretched neck of the shirt I’m wearing. He slips a finger just inside and follows the wrecked hem around to my chest. I catch and hold my breath. I know I should back away. In fact, I shouldn’t even still be here. But I can’t go. Not just yet. “Also, I can tell by what you’re wearing that you’re getting soft toward me.”
“By my clothes? Why?”
“Yep. You’re finally wearing something that doesn’t belong in a New York City boardroom. Or a club. And I sooo like it.”
His eyes flicker down to where his finger still hangs just inside my neckline, the warm digit like a brand against my skin.
“You don’t like the way I dress?” I ask, hating that my voice is so obviously breathless.
“You’re gorgeous in anything you put on, but I have my favorites.”
His eyes glow, like they’re backlit with fire. And I can feel the heat. Oh god, can I feel the heat! “And what are your favorites?”
I shouldn’t ask. I know I shouldn’t ask. I’m playing with that very same fire. But the only burn I’m worried about at the moment is the one that comes from my body as it strains toward Sig’s.
“Cut off shorts that show every inch of those long, long legs. The ones that fit your ass almost as good as my hands would.” Sig’s slips his arm around my waist, his fingers splaying right at the top of my butt where my shirt meets my jeans. I feel his hand move briefly, shuffling material until there’s nothing but the searing heat of his palm against the naked skin of my back. “But even that’s not my very favorite.”
His face is drawing closer. Not like he’s moving toward me, but like the universe is bringing us slowly, inexorably together.
“Then what is?” I ask, his mouth so close to mine I can feel the warmth of his lips against my own.
“Your costume from the balcony of that club the other night.”
In my thrall, I’m a little bit confused. I frown slightly, admitting, “But I wasn’t wearing a costume.”
“I know,” he admits hoarsely.
And then he’s kissing me.
His lips take mine in a slow, deep assault that hits me like a drug, like he’s injected me with a mind-altering substance that turns off everything except Sig. His presence, his closeness, his touch. Nothing else exists. And I’m not very anxious for the moment that it will.
One hand cups my neck, long fingers sliding into my hair. I feel them working, moving, but I don’t notice what he’s doing until my hair falls down around my shoulders. He leans back to look at me, his eyes raking through my blonde locks in a way that matches his fingers. “God, you’re amazing like this. This is the real you, isn’t it?” asks Sig.
I nod. Because I told him I wouldn’t lie. If I’m going to answer him at all, I’ll tell him the truth. As much as I can anyway.
“This is who I see when I look at you, no matter what kind of get-up you’re wearing for Tonin. I see this. I see you.”
His hands, his words, his eyes… I can’t think. I’ve forgotten my purpose, my resolve and I can’t seem to find it. Not through the haze that he’s dragging me into. Inside it, I can only see him. Hear him. Feel him. Like I’m trapped in a vacuum that contains only Sig.
“And I can’t get enough of it,” he confesses roughly, crushing my mouth with his as he crushes my body against him.
Sig lifts me off m
y feet and I wind my arms around his neck to hang on. I feel weightless, drifting through the air with his arms as my only anchor, until he lays me down on something. And then I feel only him. His weight, his heat, his touch.
I’m drinking in the exotic taste of his tongue when cool air hits my skin. He pulls away for a heartbeat and then cool is replaced with fire. The hot flames of his skin kiss mine as he settles on top of me, belly to belly.
With his palms roaming my sides, teasing the edges of my breasts, his knee slips between mine, easing my legs apart. Without thinking, I open for him, groaning into the moist cavern of his mouth when his erection makes contact with the ache of my sex.
I lift my hips toward him and he grinds his into them, rotating and shifting against me, causing a delicious friction right where I need it most. His mouth moves away from mine and travels down the column of my throat to the throbbing tip of one breast. He hovers over it, breathing heavily onto the sensitive tissue, as if to torture me for a few seconds more before he gives me what I want.
But then he does. He closes his hot mouth over one nipple and sucks. Hard. I nearly come up off the bed, digging my fingers into his hair, fisting and pulling until he bites down lightly with his teeth in response.
“That’s it, baby,” he groans around my flesh. “Gimme the wildcat.”
His hands, his fingers–at my breasts, on my stomach, squeezing my butt, scraping down my legs. His lips, his tongue–worshipping my nipples, teasing my navel, searing the crease of my thigh. His touch is everywhere. He is everywhere.
One minute I was dressed, the next, there’s nothing between us except heat and want. He took away my thoughts, my intentions and replaced them with the intoxication of his desire. I’m drunk on it, high on him.
I tremble at the tickle of his hair on my belly. I shiver at the scratch of his scruff on my inner thigh. I gasp at fire of his mouth at my folds.
He doesn’t ask permission. I don’t deny him what he doesn’t ask. He simply takes what he wants. And I simply give it.
The first warm, wet scrape of his tongue over my clit bends me forward, folding me in half with an agonizing pleasure. “Oh god, Sig!”
“Talk to me, Tommi,” he says, his lips moving sensually against me. “Tell me what you like.”
He doesn’t stop to wait for me to comply; he continues his assault like he’s gaining the front lines of an enemy force, a force he means to obliterate with fire. Hot, blazing flames that lick over every inch of my skin.
“Do you like lips?” he asks, kissing me, devouring me with his lips, opening and closing, opening and closing. “Or do you like tongue?” Like the flicker of a snake, he teases my sensitive nub, causing me to shudder, before he sweeps his tongue sweetly back and forth over the area, as if in apology. I’m writhing beneath him, my head tossing back and forth, gasping, breathless, unable to answer. I can only feel. Just like he wants me to. “Or do you like teeth?” Gently, he rasps his teeth over my clit and then nibbles it, sucking it into his mouth. Pulling, tugging, rhythmically biting. “Tell me,” he whispers, his voice a dark delight as velvety as his tongue.
“Please, Sig,” is all I can manage. I don’t know what I want. I just know that I want him. All of him.
I nearly cry out when his mouth leaves me, replaced by a single, exploratory digit. He kisses his way quickly up my stomach, pausing only briefly at my breast as his finger massages me. When his lips find mine, he teases them, brushing them lightly and then skimming them with the tip of his tongue.
“Or do you want more? Something thick and deep? Something that you’ll feel when you walk tomorrow, like I’m still inside you?”
I feel something broad and smooth replace his finger. Leaning back, Sig looks down between us, drawing my eye, too. He’s rubbing the enormous head of his shaft between my folds, round and round and then down toward my opening. He pulls back, grazing his thumb over the glistening tip. “That’s all you, baby. So wet for me. So ready for my cock.”
When he touches me again with it, I let my head fall back, my hips moving against him as his eyes click back up to mine. They’re full of passion, raw and wild. “I wish I could come right here, right on top of this sweet lil pussy. Make it mine. Cover it until you’re slick with me. Just me.”
My breath is coming faster. The picture that he draws for me, the images that his words produce, rocket through my body like a physical touch. I gasp for air, both fighting and welcoming the tension that’s building from his touch, spreading from his slippery erection. It’s like a wildfire, scorching everything in its path, even thought and reason.
“Would you like that?” he asks, dipping his tongue into my mouth, dragging the flavor of my own essence with it. He presses just the tip of himself into my opening, quickly withdrawing, tormenting me mercilessly. My body clutches at him, begging him to satisfy my need.
I squeeze my eyes shut, searching desperately for some kind of control where none can be found. Sig brings me to the brink, balancing me there without allowing me to go over. Teasing me. Tantalizing me. Driving me mad with want.
A knock on the door brings an abrupt halt to his play. Sig stiffens on top of me, going perfectly still, perfectly quiet. Our eyes meet, panic in mine, aggravation in his. I only feel more alarm that he doesn’t take this seriously, that he doesn’t take Lance seriously. It’s almost as though he doesn’t fear him at all, which is ludicrous.
My heart is pounding, so hard my vision is throbbing with the pulse of it. Sig places a finger over my lips and shakes his head once. He doesn’t have to worry about me keeping quiet. My vocal cords are frozen.
He eases off me, grabbing my clothes from the floor–I’m not even sure how they got there–and handing them to me, as though he hasn’t a care in the world. He bends to kiss my stomach, my breast and my lips before he moves to slide his jeans on over his lean hips.
As he zips up, he runs a hand through his hair and grins down at me. I’m balking, of course. And terrified, but I’m not so terrified that I fail to notice the masculine perfection that is Sig. He’s magnificent.
His shoulders are a mile wide, his chest lightly dusted with hair. His long arms are exquisitely shaped, like Michelangelo lovingly carved each one muscle out of flawless granite. His stomach is a stair step of strength, his hips trim and narrow. And his legs…God help me, they’re thick and powerful and I can still see his massive erection straining against his zipper.
“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I might hurt whoever’s at the door.”
His voice is soft and amused, meanwhile my panic returns full force.
I sit up, scrambling for some amount of calm to aid me in digesting this horrific situation.
“What if it’s Lance? Or Barber?” I ask, standing on the bed and pulling on my panties and jeans. Sig watches me, in no hurry to move, his dark eyes sizzling with desire, burning me everywhere they touch. “Stop that! We have to think,” I snap.
He has the audacity to grin. “Don’t get so excited. If it’s any of them, I’ll just say that I walked to your house to check on you and you insisted that I drive your car back. That sounds like something you’d do.”
My chest is heaving as I mull over his train of thought. Then I realize that he’s right. This doesn’t have to be a disaster.
“Okay. That sounds good. Do that.”
He laughs quietly and reaches forward to pull me into his arms, kissing me nearly senseless. I’m more than a little dazed when he lets me go. “Maybe I will.”
I watch him leave, taking in his confident posture and delicious butt. I have to shake my head to clear it before I finish dressing, concentrating on my hands not shaking any worse.
I hear low voices, but none that I recognize. I creep to the window and stick just the tip of one finger in the edge of the miniblind and pull it away from the glass only enough for me to get a quick peek. A guy I’ve never seen before is standing on the walk talking to a shirtless Sig. Only when I see the stranger smile do I relax an
d take a seat on the bed to wait for Sig to come back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO- SIG
Although Finch’s timing leaves much to be desired, it actually works out well so that we can talk outside.
“How’s it going?” he asks.
“Fine as hell until you showed up.”
Finch grins, his rusty-red eyebrows shooting up as he cups his hands over his mouth to light a cigarette. He takes a couple of puffs before commenting. “I sure as shit hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I’ve got this. Don’t worry about my end. How’s it going with you?”
He shrugs, turning to stand shoulder to shoulder with me as he casually surveys the street, picking out a stray piece of tobacco from his mouth and flicking it to the ground. “I hope something pans out. I’m not making much headway. Tonin’s got his trusted guys and the rest of us just don’t get told shit. Just the basics.”
“What about that warehouse?”
Finch shakes his shaved head. “Tellin’ us he’s converting it into a few studio apartments. Total bullshit, but…whatever. Keeping an eye on it anyway.”
“I’ll get something from my end. Don’t worry.”
Finch’s eyes flicker down my bare chest and back up. “Looks like you’re working your…angle pretty damn hard.”
I can’t stop my big grin. Before Finch showed up, I was very, very happy with how things were progressing on my end.
“Nothing stands between a Locke and his job.”
“His blow job, you mean?”
I fake punch Finch in the gut. He reacts by shrinking his abdomen away. “Oh-ho-ho! Getting slow, old man.”
“You wish, puppy.” He flips his half-smoked cigarette into the grass and exhales a cloud of smoke away from me. “Don’t forget to check your messages, man. They copied me on the files you requested. Some pretty interesting stuff in there. Turns out your sweet ‘contact’ has a not-so-sweet rap sheet.”
I frown. “I already checked her rap sheet. It’s clean.”
Finch’s eyes narrow on me. “Maybe hers is, but the sealed one’s not.”