by Julia Swift
“I feel your hard body pressed against mine, the water cascading over both of us in the shower as you lean into me, pushing me backwards into the cool tile wall.” She leans against the window, her bare back exposed to all the world below, her head still tilted to the side, teeth toying with her lip.
She slides one finger knuckle-deep into herself, and those lips part in a gasp that makes my cock pulse.
“You lift my leg up,” she says as she raises one leg to rest it on the stepstool beside the window, her thighs parted so I can see her delicate pussy, the folds as she drives a second finger into herself. “You thrust into me.” She drives a third finger inside, and groans softly, bending over her hand as her thumb circles around her clit. Her other hand grips her breast hard. “You pin me against the wall, and you fuck me.” She forces herself to straighten, leans against the glass window and thrusts her hand into herself, deeper and deeper, as her thumb circles faster. “You f-fuck me until . . . I . . . I can’t . . . ” Her eyes go wide, her lips parting, and I can’t hold back any longer. I undo my jeans, let them fall to the floor as I cross the room to her, catching her desperate moan in my mouth as I kiss her, enveloping her lips in mine.
She shivers when she comes, and I draw her hand up between us to lick her fingers clean, one at a time, keeping my eyes locked on hers.
She watches me from under those eyelashes, almost shy, which is crazy given what she just did for me. I bite her neck lightly, and smile against her pale, perfect skin. “You’re the hottest fucking woman I have ever seen, Sloan.”
She sighs into my hair. I don’t give her more time than that to recover. I grab both of her thighs, lift her until she’s balanced on the narrow windowsill, her legs wrapped tight around my waist, my hips digging into her thighs. In one desperate thrust, I drive my cock deep into her pussy, her walls clenching wildly around me. She’s still sensitive from her orgasm, and I take full advantage, letting my pelvis dig into her clit as I pull out, then slam into her again, her ass splayed flat against the window with the force of it.
I fuck her hard, fast, both of us groaning, teeth gritted, clutching for every inch of each other’s bodies. Her hands fist in my hair, and I grip her waist so tight it’ll bruise, but neither of us slows. She thrusts her hips back at me every time I fuck her, meeting me thrust-for-thrust, the momentum building until we’re both slamming into each other, and she shouts my name when she comes, shaking, as I reach my edge and come deep inside her, filling her with my hot seed.
I’m losing myself to this woman. I’m losing myself, and finding a new me with her, but at the same time, it strikes me all over again how terrifyingly delicate this is. One wrong word, one misstep, and she could find out the whole story. She’ll hate me, the moment she learns what I’ve done, what I’m doing to her, and that terrifies me.
I can’t lose her. Not now.
But it won’t do to dwell on that now. I have the sense that she’d read it on my face, if I let myself worry too much. So I force a pleasure-struck smile back onto my lips when we draw apart, drenched in sweat. Then I let her take my hand, and lead me into the bedroom.
Chapter Eighteen
Sloan
I lose track of how many new heights of pleasure I’ve reached tonight. Gage is insatiable, unstoppable. Even when he’s recovering between fucking me black and blue, he doesn’t let me rest, keeping me coming with a finger or his tongue or the more memorable time when we took a breather to shower, and he unhooked my detachable showerhead, pinning me to the tile wall and pressing the jet of water straight against my clit until I could hardly stand, and my throat was hoarse from shouting so loud.
Poor Lacey, I think as we finally drift into sleep, tangled in each other’s arms, spread across the damp sheets, both of us beyond caring at this point. His heartbeat slows against my eardrum, where my head rests on his broad chest, his curly chest hair tickling my cheek as I close my eyes and drift. His breathing steadies me, anchors me.
I have never felt so close to another person. I’ve never done this whole dropping off to sleep in a lover’s arms thing. It always felt uncomfortable in the past, too stifling and awkward. This, though, feels perfect. I fit exactly into the groove of his body, and his strong, warm arms drape around my waist, keeping me safe.
Is this what falling in love feels like?
I wouldn’t know. I’ve liked guys before, even told a couple I loved them, way back in high school when I was young and dumb and I thought that’s what you had to say after you dated for a few weeks and made out in enough dark movie theaters. Some of them even said it back, but we’d break up a week later and neither of us would cry, so it obviously wasn’t real.
I just assumed I’d never really find out what everyone else was on about. I figured love would always be beyond me. The guys I could like enough to love never loved me back, and the ones who loved me were never quite my type.
But Gage?
Gage feels dangerously close to the real deal. I could fall for him now, I could let myself trip over that cliff right this second. But would he return the feeling? Or am I just a fling, someone to distract himself with for the time being?
I still don’t understand what he sees in me. Why his eyes light up the way they do, every time ours meet. I’m nothing special. I’m no one, really. So it’s hard to believe that he could ever love me too, even as I listen to his slow, steady breath beneath my head.
I don’t know how long I lie awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering. I want to shut my eyes and relax into his grasp, drift off to oblivion with him. But I’m afraid of what it will mean if I do. I’m afraid it will be like surrendering.
The one who surrenders always loses something.
Hours tick past in the dimly lit room. I can only tell by the street lamps outside, the way they click off and plunge the room into utter dark around three in the morning, when all the drunks from the casino will have staggered home into their beds, so there’s no reason to leave the city’s lights blazing.
A while after that—half an hour, more?—the latch on my window cracks open. It’s done this almost once a week since I moved in, a problem I’ve called the landlord about a dozen times, yet he’s never fixed. The window sags open from the top and lets a sliver of cold night air sneak inside. Suddenly even Gage’s body heat isn’t enough to keep me toasty. Heck, even he shivers a little beneath me, still lost in sleep.
I reach for the blankets we tossed aside earlier, but they’re out of my reach. I try to carefully dislodge his arm from my waist, sliding off of him to reach for the blankets.
A strong hand clamps around my wrist as I do, freezing me in my tracks. Gage blinks up at me from the bed, but his eyes are blank, faraway. I think he’s still asleep.
“Gage?” I whisper.
In reply, he flips me under him suddenly, his whole body flinging over mine. His one hand still pins my wrist, and his other catches my leg, sliding all the way down to my ankle and lifting my leg up over my waist until he’s kneeling above me, his cock erect between us, my foot pressed to his cheek.
He lets go of my hand and traces the shape of my leg instead, with both hands, running them from my ankle all the way down to my thigh. One of his hands slides back up to massage my foot, while his other hand keeps sliding down my leg, to the crook of my hip, then across my pussy, his fingers tracing the outline of my lips.
I feel myself growing wetter as he leans in to nip my ankle, then the sole of my foot, his teeth scraping the thin, sensitive skin there as a shiver passes through me. Without warning, he sucks my big toe into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it, and my whole body goes warm, my nerves jangling. No one’s ever done that before.
He keeps tracing my toes with his mouth, one by one, licking them each, while his other hand spreads my pussy wide open, his fingers inching into me one at a time, until he has three buried knuckle deep inside of me, swirling them in circles against my inner walls, coating them in my juices.
When he pulls his finge
rs out of me, I groan faintly in protest. He wraps his hand around his cock instead, coating himself in my wet come, before he lets go of my toes and uses his grip on my ankle to lift me higher, raising my ass off the bed.
My eyes widen.
His fingers dip inside me for more, but this time when he pulls them out of my pussy again, he trails them down to my ass, parting my cheeks, exposing my tiny, puckered hole to the world. His soaked index finger prods at my ass, and I gasp sharply.
He looks at me then, his eyes seeming to clear a little, as if he’s waking up from a trance. He tilts his head to one side, watching me, waiting.
He’s waiting for permission, I realize. I bite my lip, debating for a moment. Do I want to do this?
It’s Gage. He’s only ever made me feel incredible so far. I trust him. So I nod.
That finger presses harder at my ass, until, with a faint spike of pain, the tip glides into me. It burns, at first. I take deep breaths, fighting the urge to clench tight around him, and try to make myself relax.
Once I figure out to watch his face, the light in his eyes as he grazes them across my body, loving every inch of me, relaxing becomes easier. His finger inches deeper and deeper into me, and suddenly there’s a widening, stretching sensation, and the pain doesn’t disappear exactly, but it floods over the top of my senses into pleasure. I moan faintly, and twist my hands into the sheets to either side of me.
He slides another finger in to meet the first, and there is more pain, more tearing at the edges of me, but also a sense of being deeply full, and a curl of pleasure as his fingers hit a hot spot deep in my ass.
“Do you have any lube?” he whispers, and my heart starts to pound all over again in a mix of fear and excitement.
I shake my head, half disappointed and half relieved that I didn’t plan that far ahead. But he doesn’t seem disappointed or even deterred.
“Oil?”
I bite my lip, thinking. “I’ve got coconut oil in the kitchen, but . . . ”
“Get it.”
I swallow hard and have to fight back a soft yelp of protest when he pulls his fingers out of me. But I do as he says, sliding off the bed and padding across my dark apartment into the kitchen, rooting through the cabinets until I find the mason jar full of the oil I use to cook.
My apartment looks different tonight. Both smaller and stranger, as if I’ve stumbled into someone else’s rooms, and they’re so much safer and more comfortable than mine.
Then I cross the threshold back into my bedroom, and it’s nerves all over again as I pass the jar to him.
He swings me onto the sheets again, laying me down beneath him, and kisses me slowly, deeply, even as he unscrews the jar and scoops out a handful, warming the solid chunks of oil in his hot palms for a moment before he coats himself in one handful, and presses the other one between my cheeks. His fingers enter me again, easier this time, and there’s a faint tingling, warm sensation as the oil coats me too.
Without warning, he grabs both of my ankles now, throwing them over his shoulders so I’m helpless on the bed before him. His hands spread my ass cheeks, and his hard cock presses right up against my entrance.
The pain flares again, even hotter and brighter this time. I gasp and dig my fists into the sheets, gritting my teeth as his tip pushes inside my ass. The burn echoes along my nerves, all the way up to my head and out to my limbs, until the tips of my fingers and toes itch with it, as he starts to thrust his way deeper. Small, pushing thrusts at first, inching himself slowly deeper, deeper.
I’ve never felt so full, so stuffed to the brim. He’s so big, and my ass is so tight, for a moment I panic that he won’t fit, but he keeps going, keeps thrusting, and before long there’s a small releasing feeling as he drives all the way into me, his balls slapping my ass cheeks as he buries himself completely inside.
“How does it feel, Sloan?” he murmurs, and I know he’s asking if I’m okay, but I want to tell him more than that.
“Like you’ve claimed every part of me,” I reply, meeting his gaze in the low light from outside, just reflected starlight now that the streetlights have shut off.
“Good,” he says. “Because I have. And you own me, too.”
Then he draws back, a long slow sliding sensation that sets my body on fire, and slams back into me hard enough to make me shout, which breaks the spell that paused us both. We’re on fire again, reaching for each other, my hands clawing down his back, his gripping my shoulders, my calves, holding me prisoner as he pounds into me, harder and faster, pain and pleasure blurring together. He drops one hand to press his thumb against my clit and I come screaming as he keeps going, driving deeper and deeper into me until he finally clenches and releases himself, filling my ass, groaning as he does. I grab him and pull him down onto me, holding him by the hair as I kiss him, savoring the taste of his release.
When he pulls out of me, this time he’s the one who lies down on top of me, and I cradle his head on my chest, the stubble on his cheek grazing my soft breasts as I hold him to me, and this time, I’m the one who drifts off to sleep first, content, all my earlier worries drifting away like so many clouds in a high wind.
I’m safe with him. That much I know.
Chapter Nineteen
Gage
Getting into Sloan’s apartment had been a cakewalk, but her brother Freddie’s place is proving to be the complete opposite. I spend eight hours on stakeout down the block from his place, visor down, shades on, hat sagging, my arms crossed over my chest so it looks like I’m taking a nap. The kid doesn’t budge from his computer desk for the first three hours straight. When he finally does move, it’s to the kitchen for cereal—which I figure out when he strolls back in a minute later drinking straight from the bowl, no spoon or anything in sight.
My biggest struggle is staying awake the whole time. I try everything from headphones blasting music to daydreaming about Sloan. The latter is a lot more invigorating, though it definitely means I won’t be ready to spring into action if anything ever actually happens upstairs here.
Finally, eight and a quarter hours into the stare-down, I startle out of a fantasy about how Sloan would look in a schoolgirl skirt, bent over my knee as I slap a ruler across that thick, juicy ass of hers.
For a moment, I don’t know what woke me. After years of working for Aaron, I’ve learned to set cruise control on my brain, and right now my instincts tell me to stop zoning out and pay some fucking attention to the job at hand, dumbass.
Then I pinpoint it. A car has pulled up out front of Freddie’s place, Pennsylvania plates, rust stains on the undercarriage, tinted windows.
One of Aaron’s?
No way. Even when his guys go undercover, they’d never be caught dead driving an American car, and this one’s a Ford.
I let my eyelids droop to half-mast and study the scene harder. The car definitely wasn’t there a minute ago, and yet I can’t see anyone in the driver’s seat or around the apartment. My muscles tighten, adrenaline starting to pump through my system.
There.
Across the street from Freddie’s place, crossing to a neighboring apartment complex, there’s a newcomer to the field. He’s wearing Dad jeans, flannel, and a baseball hat. Nothing too weird, except something about his gait seems off.
Most people would look at this situation and dismiss him straight off the bat. But something doesn’t sit right with me. That cruise control in my brain again, telling me I’m missing something. There’s a puzzle piece here I don’t see yet.
Like why this guy, who’s dressed so normally as to almost cross over into weird again, parked in front of Freddie’s apartment, only to hike up the road to his complex, when the parking lot at the neighboring apartment building has plenty of empty spaces.
Movement at Freddie’s again catches my eye. He’s standing up again, for only the third time today (seriously, it’s a wonder he hasn’t melted into that chair or turned into a slug already). That alone wouldn’t be enough to make me m
ove, except that he leans over to the window and peers out, up the street. In my direction first, and I hold my breath, making sure not a single muscle in my body moves. Then he glances the other way, lingers on Mr. Too-Normal for a minute, and slaps the blinds closed.
Moving as slow as I can, I unlatch my door and slide out of my seat. Wait until my feet hit pavement, then keep the car between me and Freddie’s window as I let the door fall almost shut, not slamming it completely.
I don’t want to make that much noise.
I wait beside the car, poised on the balls of my feet, until I hear a door slam. I dare a peek through the car windows, and sure enough, there’s Freddie, outside of the house for the first time today, an ugly neon orange jacket pulled around his shoulders and slippers on his feet.
What the fuck? I have time to wonder, before he slips straight into the car that Too-Normal deposited out front a few minutes earlier.
I watch him drive up the street, pull right into the neighboring complex, and wait, idling in the driveway, his head darting around the way guys who are nervous about being spotted do, making their alertness way too obvious. Another minute passes, then Too-Normal strides out in a different shirt this time, a baseball jersey and his hat turned backwards. From this distance, I don’t get a good glimpse of his face—just nondescript, tan, and muscular.
He climbs into the passenger seat of his own car, then the two of them roll off down the road, leaving me scowling in their wake.
That’s either some kind of deal, with a contact I don’t recognize—definitely not one of Aaron’s—or there’s something about this job that Aaron isn’t telling me.
Who the fuck is Frederick Casey really?
Time to find out.
I speed across the street, hands already fumbling for my lockpicks. This is a terrible plan. I should wait longer, map out his schedule before I go breaking into his place. For all I know, he’s taking his neighbor to the corner store and he’ll be back here inside of ten minutes.