by Kira Graham
“Cleo—”
“I read somewhere that it’s not always…oooh,” I moan, forgetting what I want to say when Hart sucks on the other nipple, this time using his teeth to lightly scrape at the tip as he releases it.
Pleasure heats up in my belly, the tightening coil of arousal causing my bones to turn to liquid even as I struggle to recall just what has him so upset with me.
Oh, yeah. Condoms.
“Foolproof,” I moan, my hands stroking through his silky hair and pulling him close when he settles over me, his mouth licking and sucking at my breasts.
God. So good. I’ve had sex, like, twice before this man, and they were both fumbled attempts that didn’t really get anywhere. I remember Dennis trying to…ahem, but it didn’t work properly, so technically I was a virgin when Hart and I first had sex. I like it. I like everything about it. He’s attentive and gentle and rough, and he seems to know just what I need and how to touch me to get me there. From the sounds he’s making as he moves his mouth up to my neck, I’m doing something right, too, because he groans when I stroke him and moans more loudly when I reach down to caress his stiffening cock, the flesh hard and silky smooth under my hand.
“I’ll pull out,” he mumbles, and the erotic way that his eyes glow as he licks his tongue over my lips does something to my sex that has the already wet flesh throbbing and slickening even more.
“Hart—”
“And rub it into your skin afterwards, so you smell like me,” he growls, his hips pumping his length harder into my hand, telling me just how hot the thought makes him.
Me, too. In fact, it makes me so hot that I feel a slide of moisture wetting my thighs, a sure sign that no matter what my brain is screaming at me, I want this. I need this closeness, this intimacy, and while I’m all messed up in my head, afraid and uncertain of what this is between us, I do trust Hart in this one small area. He won’t hurt me, and if he makes a promise, he’ll keep it.
“Fine. But do that thing with your tongue first,” I moan, thinking that I can bargain something extra—“Oh, hell!”
He does give me something extra, something that has my eyes crossing and my toes curling as he licks my sex, sucking my clit into his mouth with a force that hurts, and that also feels so good that I almost come from the first suck.
“Is this what you wanted, Cleo-mine?” he purrs, glancing up to meet my eyes as he slowly licks his tongue through my slit, the tip licking over my clit and tickling the top of my sex before he slides it back down and repeats the motion, driving me crazy.
It feels better than it should, better than I imagined that sex could ever feel, and he makes it even better because he never rushes when he touches me. Hart is a man of extremes in most things, and when he sees something he likes, it becomes a near-obsession that he gorges himself on.
Lately, that’s me. And I can’t say that I’m complaining one bit. He laps at me, licks me, and sucks me until my legs are a shaking mess of jelly, and my orgasm is so close that I feel the tightness of impending climax grip my pelvis.
“Baby,” I breathe, pleading for more even though I know that my pleas will fall on deaf ears.
He’s enjoying this now, loving the agonizing pleasure that he’s wringing from my writhing body. I love it, too. The more time I spend with this man, the more I seem to crave him, a dangerous reality that still makes me shake with fear but isn’t enough to have me running. In fact, I keep coming back for more of this, more of him, just Hart. In the time I’ve known him, I’ve come to like him, and in the time we’ve been together this way, I’ve come to need him to the point of madness.
He’s like a drug I crave, I think, spearing my hands into his hair to hold him closer. Bliss shoots through me when he hums against my flesh, and ecstasy is just one perfect lick away when he pulls back, his eyes glowing a stormy gray and filled with wild need.
“You’re so beautiful. Do you know how much you turn me on?” he asks, his eyes holding mine in a way that I am unable to look away from.
“Yes. You always tell me,” I whisper back, my voice hoarse with emotion that I don’t want him to hear or see.
“Because you are,” he says just as hoarsely, his lips swollen and glistening with my arousal.
I feel it. Every day since I’ve known Hart, he’s made sure to make me feel as smart, as beautiful, and as wanted as he could. Even before we started sleeping together, I think, stroking his face while we take a minute to just breathe and be in the moment. He makes me feel smart when he tells me about his deals and asks my opinion, as if an art-major-slash-candy-maker is someone whose opinion he values. He listens to me when I talk about Shark Tank, and though I am always invariably wrong about the outcomes, while he’s always right, he never laughs at my views. About anything.
He values me, and, in so doing, is helping me learn to value myself, something very important to a woman who got stood up and basically told that she wasn’t good enough.
“So are you.”
He laughs, the chuckle more of a growled rasp because he leans down to plant a sucking kiss on my mound, releasing the salty flesh with a pop and another groan.
“Men aren’t beautiful, Cleo-mine. They’re rugged and manly and hot, if you really want to pay me a compliment.”
“Ah, but you’re not just any man, though,” I murmur, gulping against another moan of need because he’s sliding his hands up to my breasts so that he can pinch and pluck at my nipples.
“I’m not?”
“Nope. You’re Adonis Hart, god of seduction and mischief,” I tell him, giggling when he growls and bites my mound, sinking his teeth in just hard enough to make me squirm and remember that we should be doing other things.
That’s the thing, though—with Hart, things are never predictable. We can be arguing, and he’ll kiss me so wildly that we end up in bed, the argument a distant memory by the time he’s done pleasuring me. And right now, I can feel the lust pouring from him and see the pain of unfulfilled sexual tension riding him, but instead of throwing me down and taking me, he’s talking to me.
“Seduction. Hmmm. I think I like that, Cleo-mine. It suggests that you can’t resist me,” he purrs, his tongue dipping back into the top of my slit, where he wiggles it playfully.
“I can’t. Obviously. Or I’d have gone to sleep after you made me come three times,” I admit, my cheeks blushing scarlet when he grins and sits up on his haunches, pushing my legs so far apart that I feel my ass cheeks separate.
“I like making you come, and I love seeing you blush,” he croons, his eyes going back and forth between my sex and my face, as if he’s measuring my discomfort. “But I love doing both while you squirm with pleasure and try to resist the intimacy side of things.”
“Hart—”
My protest ends on a hard cry that is ripped from me when he suddenly thrusts forward, filling me to the point of pain and then taking me into that place beyond, where pain and pleasure mix and become something else entirely.
“You feel me? You feel how deep I am in there?” he asks, his hands keeping my thighs pinned up against my chest, so that I’m at his mercy and unable to move.
I try to answer, but all I can do is gasp because he doesn’t stop thrusting, that slow grind at the end of every entrance rubbing against my clit and keeping me so on edge that I feel frantic to speed this up.
His piercing, though—sweet Jesus, feeling that thing inside me without a condom is so much better than I could have imagined. It scrapes against some deep part inside of me, a place I’ve only ever felt when Hart is inside me, and turns the pleasure into a deep, throbbing ache that settles inside my belly and keeps growing, intensifying everything.
“I’m so deep that it feels like you’re sucking all of me,” Hart rasps, the pained expression on his face turning to wild lust when I tighten around him and try to attain another level of friction.
“Please,” I plead, needing to move, anything, just something so that I can ground myself and somehow control the
explosion that I feel coiling low in my stomach, where my womb spasms and tightens inexorably.
“I am, Cleo-mine. I can feel you getting closer, baby. That’s it. Just stop fighting it and let go.”
I’m afraid to. It’s too much. Too powerful. And yet no matter how I fight it, I feel it growing stronger with every hammering thrust into me. Once, twice, and then over and over until he thrusts so deeply that I feel something pop and then release, like a band snapping and setting off an orgasm that isn’t just my clit, my sex, or my womb giving in to the pleasure. It hits me everywhere, from my breasts that are slapping up and down, to my stomach, and then to every nerve that I possess.
My sheath, already tight to the point of pain, gets tighter, and I feel Hart slam home one last time before he pulls himself back and finds release on my skin. He shudders, curses, and then shudders again as he comes all over me, his moans puffing over my heated neck when his arms go soft and he collapses on top of me, his own heat covering my sweat-slicked body.
Now’s the time to say something sassy, my mind insists, the stubborn and unbending part of me reminding me that intimacy like this isn’t a good idea. For once, I ignore it and wrap my arms around the man I…like, and savor the moment for what it is.
Good. Happy. Togetherness.
Chapter Twelve
Adonis
“What do you have?” I ask as soon as I enter my office, the gloomy light of the rainy day weighing down on me as much as the current mood that’s settled on my shoulders.
Zeus grunts, and for once, I don’t needle the guy for being the silent type as I take my seat and glance at the workload sitting on my blotter. Work can wait, or, better yet, I’ll let some of the people I pay actually do something for once. Right now, all I care about is figuring out who and what and why. Not necessarily in that order, but it’s enough for me to start with. I will find out who walked into my home and attempted to hurt Cleo. In my home. Where she should have been safe.
“The footage was wiped from the security cameras, and the backup feeds were handled, too. I spoke to Felipe, your doorman, and he’s as stumped as we are. No one came in through the lobby, so even with the footage from there, we have no leads. I did ask a buddy of mine to help out with footage from the street, hoping to catch someone coming from either direction, but that’s going to take some time,” he tells me, shaking his head when I frown.
“Zeus—”
“I’ve talked to cops, neighbors, and the staff in the building. No one saw or heard anything out of the norm, Adonis.”
“How the hell did they get up there in the first place?” I yell, my temper snapping. “I have one key card that allows access to my floor, and one key for the door. I set the goddamn alarm, Zeus. I set it before I left.”
Because I knew that Cleo might wake up, and I didn’t want her to leave before I got back. If she’d tripped the alarm when she left, I would have gotten an alert on my phone, and I’d have called her. The trouble is, her phone was off. And no alert ever came through on mine.
“I know that. You’ve told me that enough times that I actually have a nervous fucking tic just thinking about it!” he mutters, dragging a hand through his hair. “You know that if Cleo didn’t set off the alarm when she bounced—”
“I know! I hardly slept last night, just thinking about that fact,” I grate, a cold sweat breaking out all over my body.
Someone must have come into my apartment, deactivated that alarm, turned off Cleo’s phone, and then…I don’t get it. If they’d been there to hurt her, they had obviously had ample opportunity to do it. The fact is, they were in the apartment already when she woke up, and they were there the entire time she showered, sat, and waited for me—and also when she poured shampoo into my underwear drawer.
Yeah, we talked about that, and while I find it as funny as hell, it gives me the fucking willies thinking about some sick freak watching Cleo do it. Thank God she’s got ADD, and her definition of an hour turned out to be no less than fifteen minutes, tops.
“I don’t get it. Take away the fact that Cleo was in the apartment for no longer than fifteen minutes after waking up, no matter what she claims. The fact is, it was more than long enough for her to be hurt. So, assuming that we’re right, and the assailant was in the apartment, why let Cleo leave if they wanted to hurt her?” he asks, voicing a question that I don’t want to think about. At all.
To have the answer to that, I would have to focus on the fact that Cleo was alone, defenseless, and very much in danger the entire time I was away. I’d also have to think about the timing, and if I did that, then I’d have to admit that this person wasn’t just in the apartment with Cleo, but that they were already there when I was waking up, showering, dressing, and then leaving.
In essence, I left Cleo alone and in danger before I even walked out that door. Unknowingly, but still. I fucked up.
“They were already in the apartment,” I say, my teeth grinding with every word that leaves my lips.
Zeus nods, his eyes going hard, and then he curses before jumping up to do what he never does. He paces. And curses. And mutters to himself, while all I can do is watch. There’s nothing else to do because, while I’m intent on catching this guy, I’m not a detective, and anything we do find has to be dug up by people I’m paying to do a thorough job. One that I expect results from.
“That means that this guy had your security codes, and that he somehow duplicated your lift card and door key.”
“Impossible. I carry both in my wallet at all times. Ever since Marta broke into my apartment and crept into my bed, I’ve had security tightened to the point that if I were to lose my key or card, I’d be shit out of luck. There’s one way into my place, and only one other emergency exit besides the front door. That door is in the pantry and dead-bolted shut, the lock still intact. It doesn’t open from the outside, either, so there’s no way that that was the entry point,” I point out, getting a nod from my brother.
“I know. I checked it out myself. It wasn’t tampered with. The only way in was through the front door.”
“Which is impossible, Zeus. I have the only key, and the guys have looked at the locks. No tampering there, either.”
“That’s not possible, man. It just isn’t. People don’t just ghost into places, Adonis. Assuming that you’re right about the keys.”
“I am. I don’t mess with that stuff, Zeus. You of all people know that I would never take security for granted,” I say softly, frustration bleeding through in my tone because I can’t understand anything right now.
The cops are as stumped as we are, and, considering the fact that I practically had to threaten Cleo with imprisonment in order to get her to stay put this morning, I’m thinking that I’ll have to figure this shit out faster than should be humanly possible.
I adore the woman, but she’s violent and opinionated, and Tee isn’t the only biter in the Sweet family.
“I know that, man. I was there when they took Marta away. I saw how freaked out you were with that whole scene.”
“Then you know that I didn’t drop the ball there. As far as I was concerned, Cleo was as safe as could be at my place. She should have been,” I snarl, my temper flaring again.
“She should have been. This wasn’t your fault,” he says quietly, his eyes turning serious.
“Yeah? Then tell me why I got home, intending to give her breakfast in bed, only to find my place ripped apart, and Cleo’s side of the bed slashed to shit, left with the very real fear that if she’d stayed, I’d have found something much worse,” I choke, my anger so fierce that I can barely get the words out.
To make things worse, Cleo’s not taking any of this seriously. In fact, over the last three days, I’ve had to do everything from threaten her to bribe her, and then this morning I had to pull out the big guns. I set Ma on her ass. The woman just doesn’t get it, and that’s probably why I’m even more upset. I can’t keep her safe unless she allows me to.
“I can’t answ
er that, bro. I was there with you. Trust me, I understand your frustration. Don’t forget, were friends, Cleo and I. I don’t want anything happening to her, either,” he says softly, shoving his hands into his pockets, something I’ve seen him do more than once when he’s upset.
I bet those fists of his are curled right now, just begging for something to pummel. I should know; I feel the same way.
“Try getting her to understand that.”
“She still giving you hell?” he asks, his face breaking into a reluctant smile because he finds it funny.
At my fucking expense.
“Hell? The woman is impossible. She’s gotten it into her head that living together is some sort of sin that we’re committing, and trust me, man, she isn’t liking that,” I sigh, my mouth pulling into a reluctant grin of my own.
The irony, I think, as a chuckle rumbles through my chest. I had to go and fall for a woman who’s more gun-shy about commitment than I am. The truly sick part of this is that it amuses me when she freaks out. Just this morning, I caught her trying to sneak out the freaking window because, as she put it, ”This isn’t working for me! I feel married to you. That’s not happening.” And I’m quoting that word for word. Minus the screaming, the near-tears, and the curses that flew from her lips when I made the mistake of laughing.
I calmly informed Cleo that I wasn’t proposing marriage, to which I got two reactions. Relief and offense. The relief part, I will admit, hurt a little, because it kinda highlighted the fact that if I were stupid enough to want a commitment, I’d have a hell of a struggle on my hands to get it. Fuck. The offense part was funny, though, because it’s really entertaining to watch the woman you’re in a relationship with—yeah, I said it—both slump with relief and then rage at me for ten solid minutes because, according to her, “I’m marriage material, asshole!”