by Dakota Gray
It’s why I hate the necessary pause to take off my shirt. Hate it more when our hands tangle and fumble over my jeans to release my cock. A short forever passes for her to finish getting undressed, a condom unwrapped...That’s okay, I tell myself. All of it will be okay the second I can have her wrapped around my cock.
Anticipation burns in my veins as her fingers slid back into my hair, her thighs frame mine and I can close my hands around her waist. Making no bones about the fact I want to be inside her, I slam her down onto my dick. She doesn’t make a sound, only grinds into me.
My toes curl but it’s not enough. The collision of our bodies needs to be harder. Our sex needs to rattle my bones. I need that dark rabbit hole I told her about. I should warn her this time I need it.
Fucking good guy.
He prefers words. He believes intent matters. He doesn’t want to scare her.
It’s hard to fight him when Kennedy clenches around me, then finds my mouth to moan into it, then to lick me, bite me. She’s the perfect kind of wet right before coming. I push her hips down then flex my dick to appreciate the slick warmth.
“I’m so close,” she murmurs.
“You feel too good.”
“I want to come, Duke.”
Shit. I slip a hand between us to give her exactly what she’s asking for. Takes seconds for her to fly apart. I drink in the way she pulses around me and clings to me as she does. She sinks deeper into the pleasure, yet her hips continue to rock to a silent rhythm I’ve stopped trying to match. I let her fuck me without interruption. The tension of not asking for what I want feels like a rock at my nape. Shit. Makes me feel like an ingrate. Kennedy’s delicious with her legs around mine, her pussy wet and tight.
It’s not enough today. I’m going to have to ask for something that may end this. Fuck, end us.
“Kennedy...”
She stills, cups my face, and meets my gaze. “What is it?”
In the courtroom I can argue any case. I can find the words even when I don’t believe them. It’s hard to do that now.
“What do you need?” she asks with more force.
Kennedy doesn’t want the good guy when we fuck. She wants the Duke that bends her over a desk, spanks her in a kitchen and will come in her mouth on demand. I turn my face into her palm to place a kiss in her soft, small hand. There’s the bite of a callous from working with paper day in, day out. Clasping her hand, I guide it to my throat. I add pressure and watch her expression.
I can see the moment she fully understands what I’m asking her to do. I drop my hand. A second later she rests her cheek against mine.
“You’re still hard.”
“You’re still breathing.”
Her chuckle is rough as she shifts again to lay her forehead is against mine. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I squeeze her middle, trying to play off the disappointment. “Okay.”
Her fingers seem to dig into me as she brushes her fingertips along my face. “Can I like squeeze your balls instead? Really hard.”
I take her face in my hands, a laugh fighting its way out, and kiss her. She moans, falling into our mouths’ mating like it’s a salvation. I slouch lower then rock up into her. “Yeah, you can do that.” My insides tighten. “I’d like that too.”
She rolls her hips, and I pull back my head to bite down on my lip. It’s not what I need, but I’ll take it. Fuck, I almost convince myself it’s all that I need the harder I sink my teeth in.
Her sigh washes over me. She stops moving to run her thumb over the bite marks I’ve left on my lip. “Show me.”
“No.”
Kennedy clenches around me. Instinctively I thrust into her.
“You want it,” she murmurs and it tangles into a moan when I stroke inside her again. She puts her hand on my throat. There’s no tremble in it, but I hold her gaze to see if she’ll back down.
She puts her mouth to mine. “Show me.”
I place my hand over hers and once again guide her to close her fingers around my throat with enough pressure to make my heart kick with excitement. “You can’t hurt me.”
Her gaze softens. “Saying it doesn’t make it true.”
“You won’t.” With the weight of her hand on the hollow of my throat, my dick pulses. “Keep fucking me.”
I squeeze tighter and tighter until all I can feel is my pulse throb throughout my body, Kennedy’s pussy wet and snug around me. My world shrinks to those sensations.
My dick swells, gets harder than granite. The throb ringing through my body is deeper, sharper. It hurts. So fucking good. I squeeze tighter until the thud of my heart seems to suspend. I can’t think of the parts I cut out of me. I can’t remember what weak is and why I should avoid it. I’m now that next slow thud.
It’ll come and so will I. I loosen her hand so I can catch enough breath to gasp, “Tits. I want to come on your tits.”
Without argument or questions, she’s between my knees and pushing her tits together. In the back of my mind I have so many goddamn questions. The Kennedy I fucked blushed at the thought of dirty talk and catching my come with her mouth. This Kennedy doesn’t blink when I tell her I want to come on her tits after a little bit of breath play.
The next heartbeat hits and the thoughts turn into a haze. I’m too goddamn close to linger on anything but the way the tip of my cock darkens. Swirling my thumb over the head and slit, I coax myself to the very edge. My fist is tight. Slicked with my precome. She leans forward, brushing her shoulders against my legs. There’s just a roar in my head as I slip my dick between the crease of her tits.
Everything centers on how hard her nipples are, how her breath catches, and how the white of my come against her flushed skin looks like depraved art. She moans for it.
I know. I know. She’s likely doing that just to make the moment better. This does nothing for her physically. The fact she would still moan so I can come, to hold the fantasy—fuck me.
I paint her tits pale and get the pleasure of her tongue when I’m spent. I’m not myself when I murmur, “Rub me into your skin. Don’t shower. I want to smell myself on you every time I take a deep breath until we get home.”
“Is that what you need?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
She kisses me, and I know she’ll do what I ask.
I can feel the depth of that. It’s better than her hand on my throat.
But I know she’s going to ask why I need it. She’s going to question everything about me. I’m not going to be a good guy and she’ll run away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
An hour later my phone rings in the cabin. I didn’t turn it off after calling the doctor and surprisingly it remained silent until now. The damn thing sits miles away in the kitchen as me and Kennedy spoon on the couch naked. I’m going to have to answer it.
When is the question.
I draw a trail between her breasts down to her stomach. “Ms. Mclane?”
Kennedy’s breathing remains slow and steady. I ignore all the ways I want to physically take her into me, protect her as best as I can. That’s stupid and sentimental. That’s ignoring the fact she can take care of herself.
My phone quiets. I have no doubt a message will be the next alert.
I press my mouth to her ear. “I’m going to have to answer that.”
She shifts either at the intimate touch or the sound of my voice. Her eyes flutter open. “Because you don’t like questions?”
Can you guess we didn’t have a talk? I laugh at her laser focus even half asleep. “Work.”
She moans then rolls over, facing me. “How is your arm?”
More crusty blood after our workout session. “It’s fine.”
She blinks to clear sleep from her gaze. “You’re batting 0 for 2 with lies. Either I can see through your poker face or you’re not trying hard.”
Maybe both. “My work phone did ring.”
“But that’s not why you’re itching to leave.” She reaches up to br
ush her fingertips along my throat.
The words hit me right in the gut. “I like breath play.” There I said it.
“Is that what it’s called?”
I wrap my arm around her and pull her into me. My stitches protest the movement. “Yes.”
“It doesn’t seem safe.”
“That’s why I like it.”
And how do I explain the rest? I like breath play because when I was little I was told to cut out any emotion? I can only experience the full joy of sex if I starve my brain of anything else but sensation. Be it through pain or other means.
I add, “How about this, if you’re truly hurting me, I’ll tap on your wrist twice.”
She drops her hand from my throat and reaches for my cock. No. For my balls. I clench my jaw.
“And when I do this, you’ll tell me when?”
I would laugh if heat hadn’t stolen my breath. “Do it right it and you’ll know when.” In the next second my vision grayed. “Fucking Kennedy.”
Her laugh brushes against my skin while her nails graze my sac. “Was that ‘when?’”
“That was ‘more.’ Do that the next time you put your mouth on my cock.”
Her smile falls away and so does her hand. “But why do you need it, Duke?”
My phone rings again. Disappointment. I haven’t seen that expression directed at me the entire time we were on the mountain. I hadn’t missed it either. She pulls away with a sigh, giving me room to get up and answer it.
The call is work. I get up.
Before I can offer a greeting, the words, “They read me my Miranda Rights,” hit me.
My focus shifts to Gabriel’s voice. “What?”
“You’re my one call and I’m making it. I thought there would be more fanfare. TV so lied to me. Getting arrested is pretty mundane.”
This is not good. I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Did you fart when you coughed?”
Gabriel snorts. “No. I kept that much of my dignity.”
“Then you’re better off than most. Where did they take you?”
He gives me all the details I prepped him to give me if this very thing happened. I’ll go in prepared and won’t be caught off guard.
“I’m out of town so sit tight. I’ll be there to spring you. Did you call your uncle?”
“I think they called him.”
So I can’t drag my feet on this. I have to go and be Duke Alexander, Esq. After I get the information I need, I end the call. I stroll over to the couch then lean along the edge. Kennedy’s gaze is shuttered, but she’s looking right at me. She doesn’t cover herself, and I’ll be forever grateful, if not sexually frustrated for the rest of my life if I don’t get to touch her again. Soon.
“Is this the part where you whisper sweet nothings in my ear and make promises?”
I smile. “I’m going to fuck you again the next time I see you.”
She shakes her head, but amusement makes her eyes light. “If you want me to squeeze your balls really hard, you’ll use sweet words instead.”
“I’ll use please.”
She lets me lick her after that promise.
Takes time and a lot of greased wheels to get us off the mountain, but I do, and then I spend half the night buttering folks up—Preston—and prepping for the arraignment in the morning.
I'm bleary-eyed by the time I get to walk into the courtroom, and let's just say my weekend has left me off my game.
“Your Honor, the prosecution is talking about my client as though he has a history of violent or sexual crimes.”
The last is why they arrested and charged him. They found evidence of spermicide most often used in condoms. DNA can’t point a finger at or away from him. His own statement that she spurned his advances two years ago was enough to show motive.
Sweat makes my shirt stick my skin. I should be strutting through this hearing using charm or cold facts. I haven’t felt like myself since Kennedy stood in my driveway. Worse, my opponent is Wesley George the Third, during an election year.
Oh, how I hate election years.
And, yeah, Wesley George the Third, too. To him, my client’s case is a proving ground, and Gabriel will be the sacrifice. A rich boy, a rape, a woman dead? The countless rich boys who walked before him? Gabriel's fucked with this arraignment and I know it.
Chiseled Chin pops out of his seat. “What kind of DA would I be if I allow the only person at the crime scene to walk? He literally had blood on his hands. The victim turned away his advances again and again.” He glances at me and smirks. “After being released the first time—”
“He was only held for questioning. There was no arrest before last night. The press is here, and the prosecution is doing his best to put on a show.”
“For the sake of public safety he should have remained in jail. The defendant has been joking on Instagram his life is an episode of Law and Order.”
I do my best to keep my gaze on Judge Jenkins. What I want to do is close my fingers around Gabriel's lapels and shake him until he suffers from a concussion. I covered how he should look and his general behavior with the real world. I forgot to mention he should shut down his social media. In this day and age, I didn't think it was necessary to say.
If people can get fired on the weekend because of something they posted on social media, the last thing one should do is post to Instagram in a joking manner about being investigated for murder.
I can rant and rave about that after I get him out of this fix. Judge Jenkins has perched his fingertips beneath his chin. I've stood in his courtroom enough times to know things are not going my way.
And here comes Third to say, “Your Honor, I believe the defendant poses a threat.”
Let's pause here. Normally there's no sweat off my back if a client has to spend a few days in jail. County is not prison. It's inconvenient, somewhat demeaning, and for some, life-changing.
But I make the mistake of looking at Gabriel. His eyes are wide and tears are threatening to fall, but he's listened to me and kept his hands clasped together. His knuckles are bone-white. He’s wearing my tie for god’s sake. I can't send this kid back to county. He went at night when everyone was asleep and they held him in a cell by himself. General pop would eat him alive then make him their bitch in various ugly ways.
“He's employed.” The words leave my mouth, and I don't know what depths of hell they've crawled from. They are out there now, spoken with too much conviction to blame a low glucose level later.
The Judge's gray brows lift. “He's found a job?”
The case hasn't reach national levels, but locally everyone knows my client is Preston's nephew. Even if they don't know the personal connection, one of the top firms in Hartsburg has decided to go head to head with the DA's office on what appears to be an open and shut murder case.
“Yes,” I say to keep the lie at its bare minimum.
Yes. I'm telling a bald-faced lie to a judge on record.
Chiseled Chin inserts, “I find this a little convenient.”
Judge Jenkins sighs and his brown skin looks sallow because he knows there’s going to be another fight in his courtroom he has to suffer through. “Approach the bench.”
I refuse to let my gaze track back to Gabriel. No telling what will fall out of my mouth again. The judge is frowning, and I have to come up with a plausible lie by the time I get to the front. Preston will not be happy if I drag the firm into this fiction. Gabriel's too scrawny for anyone to believe he works at a gym with Tarek. Since Nate’s self-employed, a lie could only bring trouble to his front door. And who would be a big enough bleeding heart to hire someone suspected of murder?
The judge leans forward, his gaze pinned on me. “I've lived through some of your courtroom antics. Most are impressive so I forgive them.”
Chiseled scoffs. “Same. This is a step too far. You're on record, Alexander. Is Preston holding you over a barrel on this one?”
I can eat my words without consequences, but they'll send Gabri
el to county. I inhale and meet the judge's gaze. “Call his boss...Kennedy Mclane.”
I know.
I fucking know.
Jenkins straightens and addresses the stenographer. “We're moving this discussion to my chambers.”
It's the longest walk of my life. My cell is in my briefcase so I can't even text Kennedy to give her a heads up I've dragged her into a lie. On record.
It's all going to blow up in my face. This is the last time I'll be able to walk in the halls of justice with my dignity.
I cherish the moment and take it all in. I even manage to ignore Third as he mutters about this all being bullshit. If not for my father I wouldn't get away with any of this. I drag my feet and that means I'm the last one through the door. I close it behind me as Jenkins settles behind his desk.
The room falls quiet as he dials Kennedy's number from memory. Yes. From memory. She's a fixture in our local legal system.
She's the one person who can save my ass.
The woman who believes in black and white justice.
I shove my hands into my pockets and wait for my career to go down in flames right before my eyes.
The ringing stops and her voice fills the office. “Malcolm, how are you? How's Stella?”
“I am good and so is the wife.” He smiles and leans on his desk. “But I'm calling to get some details. Duke has told me you've hired Gabriel Lance.”
Silence. One long enough both Jenkins and Third pin me with a disgusted gaze.
“You mean Preston's nephew?” she asks.
Jenkins shakes his head. “I know you're a softie, but you hired an accused murderer? Based on Duke's word?”
I'm not offended by this. How can I be when my ass is clenched so tight I could turn coal into diamonds?
Silence again then she says, “There is clearly something about this kid. Duke doesn't stick his neck out for anyone but himself. I hired Gabriel to do grunt work. I'll have Duke bring you the paperwork if that helps.”
Jenkins glares at me for a second. “Your word is good enough.”