by Laura Day
There was another one of those pauses that could have brought a universe into creation, and then he nodded. “Come home with me,” he said. “After we eat. We’ll go back to my place, crash on the couch, watch a movie. I should have asked you over ages ago.” The waitress delivered the burgers, and he reached across the table, touched his forefinger to the back of her hand. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want to come over. Do you want to come over?”
She turned her hand over, letting her fingers twine together with his. “Yes,” she said. “I’d love that.”
Her heart was slamming around her chest like a frightened bunny. While their relationship had been confined to the guest bedroom of Jack and Missy’s house, it had been different. Safe. Something she could walk away from at any time. It had also been quieter, calmer, less— wild than it had been in those first few days, before Declan had ruined everything.
Suddenly, she had no idea what the next few hours were going to hold.
They talked throughout dinner. About the garage, about Caroline’s cousin Teddy—Munch, to the club, and despite many horrible attempts at torture through tickling, Caroline had still refused to tell Mason how he earned himself that name in the first place.
He’d chosen to remain in his position as the club’s enforcer, rather than become Mason’s VP. They discussed Trish, and the work she was doing to help the young girls who were rescued from Declan’s stable rebuild their lives. Some of them he’d illegally brought into the U.S., some of them he’d kidnapped or lured away from refugee families.
It was a story that sounded far too “big city” to have happened in a smaller town in Vermont. And she told him about work, and he listened to her accounting jokes and her finance humor, and he kept touching her hand, so softly that it set her insides on fire.
They skipped dessert.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
She stood inside the apartment, turning in a slow circle. She could feel him tight and nervous beside her, waiting for her assessment, and it was fun to be the one making him wait for once.
The apartment was small, with a kitchenette, a living space, and what she assumed was a bedroom and a bathroom down a narrow hallway. There was a small table and chairs, a couch that sagged just a bit in the middle, and a beaten coffee table set in front of it. The walls were lined with bookshelves, each shelf crammed with books. Old paperbacks, old textbooks, papers, and file folders. All of it was painfully neat, incredibly clean, nothing out of place.
“So…” he said finally. “Do you like it?”
“I feel like you must have been judging my housekeeping every second you were at my house,” she said, completing her spin and smiling at him, inviting him close with an extended hand. He tugged her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her waist.
“Not at all,” he said. “I understand that not everyone served, and was forced to keep their stuff in ridiculous amounts of order for years at a time. Some people get out, and they refuse to fold anything ever again, but sometimes…” He shrugged. “It makes me feel like one thing is always under my control. That’s helpful on the shitty days.”
“I can see that,” she said, leaning up to kiss him.
His lips brushed against hers, and everything else fell away. In the other relationships she’d had, if they even made it this long, sex had already become perfunctory, something done just because it was a way to pass a Saturday night.
For him, her body still thrilled at his touch, her nipples tightening, a wetness swirling down into her panties. She pressed against him, sighing into his skin, and his fingertips kneaded the flesh of her ass. She could feel him growing firm against her, feel his tension and stress easing, being replaced by a very different type of need and desire.
“So you like it?” he whispered again, and she laughed. She pulled away from him just a little, catching her fingers in the belt loops of his jeans and tugging him after her as she made her way to the couch.
The cushions were worn, but as she stretched out into the arm of the couch and pulled him down over her, there was no puff of dust or stench of mildew. As he covered her with his body, his mouth warming her neck and the tops of her breasts, as his thigh found the space between her thighs and she ground against him, nothing else really mattered.
“This wasn’t what I had in mind,” he said, nipping at the skin of her throat as she sighed and tugged his shirt out of his jeans, trailing her nails up his spine.
“Are you complaining?” As she shifted underneath him her hips pressed up into his, and his head dropped to her chest for a moment as he focused on breathing.
“Anything but,” he said. “I just— I didn’t bring you back here just to have sex with you.”
She reached down between them, running her hand over the thick bulge in his jeans. “What if I let you bring me here to have sex with you? Specifically, to have sex without worrying if other people are listening.”
“Does it bother you that Jack and Missy might be listening?”
She sighed again, and he leaned back, letting her scoot out from underneath him. “Not so much that they might be listening… That’s kind of hot. But the idea that they might hear and not want to. I think that’s what bothers me.”
“I can see that.” He reached out and twined his fingers through hers, pulling her into his lap and snuggling her into his arms. “I can see Gloria being okay here. There’s a yard in the back, fenced in. She’d be safe here.” The pause was so long, so soft, that she knew what was coming long before it happened. “You could both be safe here.”
The silence stretched and pulled. If she answered too fast—or too slowly—it would ruin everything. And if she said anything else… god, she had no idea what to do. “We could be,” she said, aiming for noncommittal. His arms tightened around her, and she found that her head fit perfectly under the curve of his chin.
“Do you really think so?”
“I don’t— I don’t know. So much has happened, and so fast. I don’t feel like we know all that much about each other, and I’m afraid of ruining what we have by trying too hard and too fast, moving too quickly.” Once she started talking, the words tumbled out, one over the other, and she had to choke them off. She waited for the panic to happen, for him to shout or be angry or something, anything.
Staying calm wasn’t what she expected at all. “Things are moving quickly,” he agreed. “But sometimes, I think they simply do. And this thing between us— it’ll last or it won’t, but either way, I’d rather find out than wait around. And I know that when you’re with me, I feel calmer, more centered. That hasn’t gotten worse in the past couple months, it’s gotten better. More true. And so I want you near me more. All the time, if I can have it.”
All the objections, all the complaints, all the explanations of the ways that he was wrong flew through her mind, and she had to push them away with firm hands. This wasn’t the time to protest about the club, or about him following the same path Declan had, or any of it. This was the time to trust. To let herself fall into his arms and be content. There would be time for all the doubt the world could hold— later.
“I love you,” she said, and she’d said it before, now and then, but it was different this time.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
It was different, as he pulled her towards him and she straddled his lap. His hands came to her breasts, teasing her nipples harshly, and she brought her mouth to his earlobe, catching it between her teeth and giving it a less-than-gentle tug.
He groaned harshly, his hands on her hips, pulling her tight over him, dragging her body against him. His fingers found the hem of her shirt, yanking it sharply up over her head, lifting her breasts out of the cups of her bra. She leaned back as he bent over her, one nipple in his teeth as he suckled harshly at her flesh, the other tweaked between the rough pads of his thumb and forefinger. He knew all the secrets to her body now, and she twisted her hips over him, sighing and hissing as the swirling energy began to build inside of her.
“You’re still wearing so much clothing,” he said. “It’s been— how long, since I could make you scream without worrying?”
He bit at her nipple, dancing on the edge of too hard, and she cried out, loving the freedom of not needing to choke off the sound. “Weeks,” she murmured, “Weeks, at least.”
Mason yanked hard at the waistband of her jeans. “These are in the way,” he muttered. “I want to taste you.”
She stood, and he moved with her, following her up. He went to the small stereo in the corner, and punched a few buttons; the speaker quality was much better than she’d expected, and the sound was something jazzy and intense, something that made her hips move, slow and soft. Her fingers went to the button of her jeans, but he brushed her hand away.
“We can stay all night,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms again and swaying gently to the music. “There’s no rush.”
She couldn’t help staring at him. It seemed so small, inviting her into his home, his sanctuary, but she knew, deep down, that this was a big thing. Being invited within the inner sanctum, into the place where he didn’t have to defend himself. But then, given the things he’d said, was there really anywhere in the world he didn’t feel the need to set up defenses?
He kissed her then, soft and slow again, and there was nothing between them, or at least, nothing that mattered. His hands slid over her skin, soothing away all of her worries about Declan, about what the future held, about his integrity and his ability to withstand temptation. He stoked a fire deep within her that she’d thought could burn no hotter, and yet he always found a way to crank the temperature up another couple of degrees every time they touched.
She grew tired of exploring the planes of his back with her hands, and reached for his belt again. This time he didn’t stop her; he moved with her, keeping his lips sealed over hers while she loosened his belt and shoved his jeans down his hips.
He did the same for her, falling back to the couch, pulling her into his lap again. His boxers, her panties, nothing else between them, he pulled her into motion over him, the hard heat of his cock grinding over her clit as her bra flew across the room. His teeth clamped down on her nipple again, teasing and suckling and tormenting her as she cried out in rhythm with him, his hands harsh and firm on her ass.
“You want me to come like this?” she gasped, fighting back the swirling ecstasy. “I thought you wanted to take it slow.”
His hands on her hips became even more urgent, moving her faster, harsher. “I said there was no rush,” he said, staring into her eyes as her breathing became rapid, dizzying, frantic. “I never said I didn’t want you to come, hard, where I can watch you.”
The surge washed over her then, leaving her whimpering, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she trembled and shook over him.
“Jesus, I love watching you come,” he murmured, laying her down on the couch. She thought he’d reach for her, but instead, he knelt between her knees, his mouth covering her pussy, the panties a thin layer of cotton between his mouth and her heat.
“Too soon,” she murmured. “Gotta give me a second to recover.”
“No,” he said, and his teeth were teasing at her clit, making her arc as he built upon the aftershocks, riding the wave of too much sensation, and she was surging again, not quite coming, not quite that, but close, very close, as she choked back the scream that wanted to slide out around her teeth.
He pushed her panties aside, licking into her, and she ground down into his mouth, desperate and urgent and begging without words. He laughed softly and gave her what she wanted; his mouth on her clit, focused and intense, and his fingers buried inside of her, hot, wet, slick, thrusting into her body, mimicking what he wanted just as much as she did, but with the ability to direct his attention up just that crucial amount, dragging his fingertips over the sweet spot just inside of her, making her cry out and shudder and surrender, but still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to let go of the noise.
She didn’t think anyone would hear, exactly, but it felt too wanton, too desperate, in a way that it hadn’t when they were first together.
He slid her panties down her hips, and she was exposed beneath him. He surveyed her for a moment, a quiet smile on his face as his hands ran down her thighs. “You’re exquisite,” he said. “Mona Lisa’s got nothing on you.”
She laughed. “They say she’s better in person.”
“I’ve seen her. She’s not so fancy. I like you better.”
“I like you better, too,” Caroline said. It didn’t quite make sense, not really, but it made him grin at her and kiss the inside of her thigh, and that was what she wanted.
He was hard and erect in his shorts, and she reached for him, stroking him roughly through the jersey. His expression grew serious and he leaned into her caresses and made soft, delicate sounds at the high points of her movements.
“Here,” he asked softly, “Or the bedroom? Condoms are in the bedroom, for reference.”
She thought about telling him that he didn’t really need a condom. They’d both found reasons to be tested in the last month or so, and they knew that bit was fine, and she’d gotten a prescription for the pill at the same time. She hadn’t told him that part yet, though. It wasn’t that she thought he’d flip out, or that she loved the feel of condoms so much, it was just...another step. A statement of trust. And even though she did trust him, saying out loud that she trusted him in a given moment was different than trusting him for an unspecified amount of time in the future.
“Bedroom,” she said. “Easier for you to hold me down there.”
His eyebrows went up. “Is that what you’re in the mood for tonight?”
“You want me to scream for you, don’t you? That’s what you’re looking for?”
“Yes,” he said, the sound dragged out long and low as if she’d tugged it out of him with a fishing hook.
“Then take me to bed and fuck me until I scream.”
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
He growled—he actually growled—and then flipped her over his shoulder with an ease that she sometimes found eerie. They were about the same height, he wasn’t weight-lifter strong, but he could pick her up and carry her around like a sack of potatoes with no real effort expended. It was beyond nerve-wracking. Beyond, and straight into incredibly exciting. Especially when she wiggled too much, and he slapped her ass hard enough to leave a stinging red mark.
The bedroom was just as pin-neat as the rest of the apartment. His mattress sat on a platform bed, with the comforter neatly folded under at the end. He tossed her down onto the mattress, shucking his shorts while she bounced for a moment, and then pushed her down into the bed at her wrists. “How long do you think you can stay quiet?” he asked. “How long do you think you can keep from making any sound at all?”
“I don’t—” know, she started to say, and then he spread her folds with just one finger, gently stretching and teasing at her entrance. She clamped her teeth down, feeling the urge to cry out swell within her, and choking it off.
“What game can we play,” he murmured to himself, adding a second finger to the teasing swirl. “What reward do you get if I bring you off—Hm, say, twice?—without you screaming?”
“You have to be my slave,” she said, trying to force clarity into her head. “I can tie you down and do anything I want to you—that you consent to—and you have to let me. And I can use anything in the toy chest.”
He knew what she was thinking about—the thick black dildo and the strap-on harness that it fit into. “I’m not sure that’s any kind of punishment for me.”
“No,” she said, and then had to take some very intense deep breaths to keep from losing control right there; his fingers had slipped inside her and found that nubbed spot on the front of her core, and he was teasing it while he stroked her clit with his thumb, and she was going to explode, burst, come so utterly that she’d fly into pieces, and he’d have to help her pick them out of the carpet for weeks. “But it would b
e a reward for me,” she said, all in a rush, and then let her hips go wild, fucking his hand, forcing herself to focus on keeping quiet, silent, feeling the sensations intensity as she denied them release.
“And if I make you scream?” he said, moving with her hips, tormenting her, not letting her thrust as fast and as hard as she wanted to. “What do I get?”
She panted hard for a moment, pushing the arousal away again. This wasn’t going to work for long; her sex felt heavy and thick, electric and tingling, and her hands were clenching into the comforter, wrecking his neat bed, and she didn’t care. “What do you want?”
“You and Trish,” he said, without hesitation. “If that’s something you’d go for. If it’s not, it’s okay, I’ll back off about it, never mention it again, but if I get to choose, that’s what I’d choose. The two of you—god, you would be hot together. And the idea of having both of you?” He shivered, and she felt it all the way down to her core.