by Elise Jae
“But Drift and Kimba…”
“It’s been long enough, they’re already back in their private room. Neither of them are the sharing type.”
I don’t go so far as to say the public room will be safe.
Steering her through the crowd, I meet the eyes of no less than four men who clearly want to step up and try their luck with her. Each one finds a reason not to.
Halfway through the room, one of the dancers stands from a patron’s lap, just far enough into our path that Jessica stops. My hand slides around her hip so I don’t push her into the other woman and….
I have to lock my muscles so I don’t pull my hand away as though it’s been burned.
She isn’t wearing anything underneath that dress.
Glancing up at me over her shoulder, she smiles, one brow raised in question.
But there’s nothing I can say that she’d be safe hearing.
When the way is clear again, she continues to the door.
The woman standing there has been watching us. As far as gatekeepers go, she doesn’t look that intimidating. She’s beautiful—everyone who works at Margot’s is—but nothing about her suggests that she could remove a full-grown sian man from the premises with minimal force. And yet, I’ve seen her do it a half dozen times.
“Marie,” I say with a nod as we stop in front of her. “How’s it going tonight?”
“Kimba just danced, it’ll start getting crazy in about a half an hour, when the liquid courage kicks in for the younger kids.” She glances over the room behind us before opening the door. “Margot says have fun.”
The look she gives me is teasing, and I wonder just what sort of rumors Margot plans to start.
I leave those thoughts on the other side of the door as I step through.
The room is relatively empty. There are about six patrons in various stages of enjoying the woman who’s chosen to share their night.
Most of them are focused on the woman with them—though I have no doubt they catalogued our entrance, just not the oddity of it.
Except, maybe, the man standing in the middle of the room, under a beam of light a trio of women sit around him and while I can’t hear what they’re saying, I know. Anna is with them. She told me about the game.
And I’ve met Marcos before. He’s a good guy with weird appetites, and a favorite woman at the club. A woman who’s nothing like Jessica.
Steering her around the perimeter, I pause beside the door that leads into the employee area—an escape route if I need to get her out quick.
It’s not a question I want to ask, but at least I feel a little safer offering him. “I know the man standing under the light. Do you want me to ask him if you can take a look?”
“I think tonight is one where I just want to hang out on the edges… if that’s alright with you.”
“It is.” But I already know coming back is going to be hell.
The doors open and a large group comes into the public room and I curse under my breath.
I may not have been here often, but the women who work here aren’t shy about telling you who they do not want to wind up in a room with. Three of the seven men in the group fall into that category.
And they zero in on Jessica immediately.
She sees them coming too. “I’d like to suggest that you’ve purchased my attentions for the night. And like your boss… I don’t share. I’m selfish like that.”
Jessica pushes me down into a chair against the wall and slides onto my lap without waiting for my agreement—not that I would have said no, but….
“Sorry about that,” I say as she repositions herself so I’m not stabbing her in the ass.
“It’s fine.” She leans against me, placing a hand on my chest. “Did you stay out here when you visited before?”
“No. I don’t like the idea of being watched.”
“Me either.” She takes a drink of her Paloma and scans the room.
It gives me ample time to study the way she’s shifted inside of her dress. She has to be taped into it and I’m sorely tempted to tell her she needs to lose the jacket to make the scene look right. But Luther is less than five feet away, and I want him to see as little of her as possible.
“Trench,” Luther says, “I thought Margot kicked you out.”
“I just found other things to occupy my time.”
“A bondmate?” His friend says in the same moment as another asks, “You?”
They say it with such disbelieving disdain, I want to knock them to the ground.
Jessica glares at them. “How about you boys go bother someone who wants your attention.”
They snort.
Luther turns a patronizing smile on her. “No one wants Trench. You’ll figure that out soon enough. Then you should come play with me.”
“I’d rather eat glass.”
His face hardens as if he can’t fathom the rejection. But he recovers quickly. “Your loss.”
Luther and his friends leave, but not without a few backward glances.
“What a dickhole.” Jess says before taking another drink.
They’re far enough into the room by now I feel safe in offering… “Do you want me to get up, let you have the chair? It’s more comfortable...” I’m still pressing into her.
She settles her head back on my shoulder and lets out a little sigh. “No. I like it here.” I feel her tense, “Unless… crap, am I making you uncomfortable?”
“Not that way.”
A soft chuckle whispers between the music to me.
I scan the room, watching for any more undesirables like Luther, turning back to my immediate surroundings only when a waitress comes to collect our empty glasses.
She smiles… but it’s not at me. It’s at Jess. Between the fact Jess isn’t looking at her, and the way her gaze slides to me after, I know Margot’s already spreading tales.
I wait for her to leave before I look back at Jess and immediately follow her eyeline to…
Saints.
I don’t know if I’ve said the word out loud, or to myself.
There are at least a dozen naked men, all fully aroused, but... she’s watching them with a clinical detachedness on her face. It’s a flat gaze. Curiosity without actual enjoyment.
She winces, and I look back to see two of them competing for the attention of one woman.
When she shifts in my arms, I look down, she looks up….
“I’ve seen enough. Let’s go home.”
Sliding off of me, she waits, and takes my hand, but I don’t want to trek all the way back through the public room, so I tug her gently toward the back corner, and slip through the partition into the hall that runs along both sides of the wall.
“Employee’s only?” She asks once we’re in the long empty space.
“Good to know about when you want to make an escape.”
We’ve stopped and I let out a long breath, releasing the tension I didn’t realize I was carrying in my shoulders.
Thankfully, the hallway is dim, and empty.
“Trench?”
I look down, meeting her eyes.
“I have a question.”
“I may have an answer.”
Her lips quirk in a tiny smile, and she presses up on her toes, to brush a kiss across my lips. Her eyes are wide as she pauses there, her lips a hair's breadth away from mine. And that’s the question.
Reaching up to touch her face, to run my thumb along those soft lips I can still taste on my own. We shouldn’t be here. We definitely shouldn’t be doing this. But I can’t imagine walking away right now.
I pull her lip down with my thumb and her tongue darts out to brush against me.
Closing my eyes against the very real pain that leaves me in, I feel her hands fist in my coat, and she pulls me down to her.
She kisses me again, so softly, I have to open my eyes to be sure it happened at all.
“None of them did it for me. Why is it that seeing them fucking did nothing… but b
eing around you makes me want to do bad things?”
I hear someone coming. It’s a different clatter from the direction of the kitchens.
And as much as I want to turn back for the private rooms. I can’t.
It’s entirely possible we’re a danger to ourselves.
“We need to go.” Before I do something we can’t take back.
SEVEN
JESSICA
There’s a six-inch gap between the car seats… but it feels like a mile. And the gap feels even wider since he hasn’t spoken since we got into the car.
I pushed too far. It wasn’t fair.
“There were a lot of men there tonight that would probably be happy to help you. I can ask Margot to put out feelers.”
I know he means with the research, but that lightness in my chest sinks like a rock.
“If you’d be okay with it, I’d still rather use you.”
He pauses, and I force myself to smile. “You did offer ‘anything you could help with.’”
“You should study others’” He’s pulled back, isn’t looking at me anymore. “The brotherhood and I… we’re atypical specimens.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like I said before, we were designed to hunt the creatures. So, we’re not ‘normal.’”
“You already said you’d never compared.”
I’ve wanted to kiss him for long enough that the idea of where it could lead has me squirming in my seat, and when we finally get inside. I watch him as he tosses his coat onto the chair that seems to be its designated resting place.
I toss mine along after it and follow him into the living room, waiting for him to turn, to see.
When he does, the way his eyes narrow has me drawing a deeper breath. He’s looking at me the way I feel. Hungry, but there’s no food that will ever satisfy.
“Do you have any interest in human anatomy?” I smooth my dress down and his pupils dilate.
“Yes.”
“I have more questions.” Rucking up my skirt so I can kneel to sit on the couch beside him, I ask. “What is it that arouses you?”
He’s tense when he turns around, looking at me like he’s not certain he knows the right answer to the question.
“In general? Or about you?”
“I guess, about me.”
He doesn’t hesitate to answer this time. “Everything.”
“This is in the name of science. You don’t need to flatter me.”
“I’m not lying.” He says his voice low as he reaches out to take my hand. “Everything you do makes me want you.”
I drag my fingers over his shoulder, and then down.
“So, when I touch you?”
“Yes.”
I stop, fingers halfway down his arm, eyes locked on his lips. “What if I was to do more…?”
“More?”
“When I kissed you?”
“I was so hard, I thought I was going to do something I couldn’t take back.”
“What couldn’t you take back.”
His jaw clenches, eyes on my mouth. “You know.”
“If I kissed you again?”
“It’d be dangerous.”
“I’ll risk it.”
I don’t have to press close. Trench’s hand wraps around the back of my neck, pulling me gently forward, his lips brush over mine.
“Tell me to stop, any time you want.”
“I will.” But I won’t.
He takes my mouth slowly, and then all at once.
Kissing me so thoroughly, I want to know who I need to thank at Margot’s.
But then, Laurel did tell me they never do anything by halves. The idea of what that could mean in the bedroom….
His hand moves from my neck up, into my hair, and he tips me so I’m leaning fully against him.
Fingers trailing down my arm, he clasps my wrist and pulls my hand to him, I cup his bulge and my eyes fly open.
“Does that answer any of your questions?” His words are soft against my lips, and he’s watching me.
“Partially.”
I feel drunk, put the Paloma wasn’t that strong, and it was just one. It’s…. Him.
“Do you guys put out pheromones or… some other chemical thing?”
“No….” he pulls back, eyes hooded, his smile is small, almost pained. “You just want me.”
I hum because I don’t want to actually agree and pluck at his shirt. “I want this off.”
“You haven’t had enough of my chest in the last four days?”
Shaking my head, I bunch the fabric up, but he’s the one who takes it off. And, again, I’m met with that glorious expanse of skin.
I run my fingers over him, touching him without truly caring about the data. The professional Jess has definitely taken the night off.
And I want….
Looking him in the eye before I dip down, just to make sure there’s nothing there to tell me I need to stop, I sweep my tongue over his wide, flat nipple.
He groans and drops his head back.
“You make me want to engage in bad science….”
“I’m here to serve you, whether the science is good, or not.”
“I want to play with you…. Would you be willing to play with me?”
“Anything you want, sweetheart.”
“Good.” I slide one strap off my shoulder, then the next, and watch as his hungry gaze travels down to lock on my breasts.
“I figure I should level the playing field.”
He looks back up at me, meeting my eyes, and a small smile touches his lips—something softer than I’ve seen before. “If that’s the case, then….”
And he’s looking at me like he wants to devour me whole.
His palms skim across my breasts, and he dips down. It’s his turn to suckle.
I’ve touched him enough in the past few days… it’s only fair that I let him explore to his heart’s content. And God it feels good to be bad.
“Do you think you’re up for pleasing a woman?”
He looks away, but I think he rolls his eyes as he does.
“Remember, I’ve been to Margot’s a few times. I know what I’m doing when it comes to that.”
“Good.”
He turns to me in a flash of a movement and I try not to chuckle at his surprise.
“Did they teach you how to eat pussy?”
I can’t tell if he doesn’t answer because he's shocked, or if the answer is no. But his eyes narrow and his grip tightens.
“Why don’t you be the judge of that.”
“Yes please.” He sweeps my dress over my head and pulls me forward fast enough I drop back to the couch.
The giggle that escapes my lips is part humor, part terror. I have no idea where I thought this was going to go when I stepped off that spaceship. This hadn’t factored…
But it was inevitable.
God, I want every little bit of him that I can get.
His hand, warm and rough, spreads over my abdomen, fingers sweeping down as he covers me.
His face is a mask of pure concentration, his jaw so tense.
When he swoops down to lick me, I have to close my eyes. Toe-curling pleasure courses through me.
I’m horny enough, I could trick myself into thinking it wouldn’t have mattered whether he was good at this or not, but as his mouth covers me, as he licks and kisses and sucks…. I have to admit that would have been a lie.
And I’m so happy he hasn’t disappointed.
He pulls his shirt off over his head and lifts me so my legs sling over his shoulders.
“Can I make you come, Jess?”
That little cruel streak in me has me smiling at him. “You can try.”
Eyes narrowed, he grips my thighs a little tighter, and it’s so hot to see his tongue disappear. To watch this enormous man worship me with his mouth. But I can’t watch for long.
He kisses my clit before gently sucking and I have to close my eyes, have to press myself against him.
I grab hold of the couch cushions so that I don’t take his hair in a vice grip and force him to drown in me…. Because it would be so easy to drown in him.
He’s good at this.
I fight him all the way to that promised orgasm, and he doesn’t once use anything but his mouth.
He feasts like I’m delicious, and gluttony is his favorite sin.
Thoughts like those slip away from me, and I’m left with little more than the three words I can still manage.
Yes.
God.
Please.
It’s hard to breathe in anything other than short gasps, and when Trench’s teeth graze my clit, I come apart… and I’m not entirely certain when I come back down.
My body is laid out like a feast between us, and he looks at me over it, a smile on his wet lips.
“What’s the verdict?”
“They taught you very well.”
He smiles like a schoolboy.
God I want him. This was a very bad idea. I want to have him crawl up me and sink his cock into my pussy. But that would be a very bad idea.
“How quickly does the bond form?”
“I don’t know. But however quickly... it’s not worth the risk, Jess.”
Something sad flashes in his eyes, and I want to ask him what’s wrong.
But he doesn’t give me the chance, kissing me like it’ll make me forget any questions I might have had.
And it works.
I struggle up pulling him, turning him, and when he’s where I want him, I throw my leg over to straddle him.
The rough fabric of his pants rub against my wetness, his bulge pressing toward me.
His hands go to my breasts, covering them, almost as if he’s worried about my modesty… except that his thumbs swirl over my nipples, making me wiggle.
“Thank you. For not lying about the bonding.” When he looks up at me, confused, I say. “For never lying to me. Even though you could.”
“I never will. Even if I want to.”
When he shifts me, I think it’s to move me off of him, but it’s to slip his hand between us.
He presses two fingers into me and I have to drop my head back, my eyes rolling, and the moan that escapes my throat doesn’t sound like me.
“I want….” I have to take a breath. “Can I please suck your cock?”