3. Kendrick
Chapter three
Kendrick
I park in the spot next to where my own car sits, in the designated car park for my apartment building. Spencer’s staying for the rest of the morning; I’m not giving him a choice. We have maybe an hour or two, possibly three if we push it, before we’ll head into HQ for the day. Time for a power nap, a shower, and some food. In that order.
He doesn’t argue with me, just gets out of the car and follows me to the elevator without a word. He crowds me in the small space, his hand slipping into my pocket.
“How many people do you think have had sex in here?” he wonders aloud.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but now I am. I take a subtle step away from the rail on the side of the wall. How often would they clean it? Not often enough. “Too many, probably.”
“Mmm.”
Anger swirls in my gut, one with sharp edges and spikes. Is he thinking about having sex in here? With some nameless, faceless woman? “Is that what you want to do?” I ask stiffly, the words out of my mouth before I can call them back. He has no right to think about anyone else when we’re together. If he wants to jerk it to some random fantasy with a woman I want to murder just thinking about it, then he can do it when I’m not here. “Got a target in mind already?”
He studies my face, not answering.
Payback about the bath sex comment, I’m sure. I haven’t had sex in a bath. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I had sex, period. It’s been years. No point thinking about it; I’ll never have sex again, not as long as Spencer wants me. I don’t regret that, even knowing how pathetic it is.
“We left the food and coffees in the car,” he says eventually, just as the elevator doors open onto my floor.
Shit. “I’m not going back down to get them. Whatever I make after we nap will be a thousand times better than whatever you got.” We can throw it all out when we go back down in a few hours.
“I like it when you talk dirty to me.”
If only that were true.
A twinge in my leg as we head down the hallway unfortunately causes me to limp for a fraction of a second. Not enough time for any normal person to have noticed. Barely enough time for my body to notice. Spencer notices, so hyperaware of everything I do.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, frowning.
“No.”
“I saw you wince, don’t lie to me. You need to get off your leg.” The irritation in his tone shouldn’t make me happy. Except that when he’s mad at me, or pissed off, or any of the other emotions that flit across his face every day, it means he’s focused on me. And I want his attention on me, always.
“My leg is fine.” Fully healed, with a clean bill of health. I’ve had enough physical therapy to last me a lifetime. Considering the way my leg was broken, and the metal now holding it together, I’m extremely lucky to have healed so well and so quickly.
He slides an arm around my waist, taking some of my weight. “Where are your keys?”
There’s literally no need for him to assist me. The twinge is gone, more a phantom pain leftover from months of feeling it than anything currently wrong with me. I could run circles around him and chase down anyone on the street within seconds. Physically, I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. Mentally is a story that I’m not interested in reading.
I don’t ask him to move, don’t tell him I’m fine again—as if he’d listen—and instead, soak in his touch. The curve of his fingers over my hip, the side of him a heat against me, his hair brushing my shoulder. I’m jealous of my shirt, getting to feel that when I can’t. It makes me want to strip naked so we’re skin to skin, as close as two people can get without having sex.
The only consolation in the fact I can’t have him that way is that no one else gets to either. No matter what kind of woman he fantasises about, that’s all it will ever be. A fantasy. I’ll kill anyone who touches him.
He guides us into my apartment and makes me sit on the three-seater black leather couch. “Take off your pants.”
A terrible idea. “I really don’t need—”
“Now.”
There’s nothing wrong with my leg, and we both know it. “Maybe you should have let me do that before you made me sit down,” I mutter as I awkwardly undo my belt and buckle and shove the slacks down to my knees. He takes off my dress shoes and tugs them down the rest of the way until I’m sitting there in nothing but my shirt and jacket, and my black briefs clinging to my thighs. Pulling off my jacket at least makes me feel a little less awkward.
I bite back a moan when his fingers dig into my leg, moving up my calf and massaging aches that aren’t there. His touch is magic, lighting me up and shooting straight to my dick. He can’t miss the way I react to him, the way the fabric of my briefs stretches and expands. He moves up my leg to my thigh, dangerously close to the part of my anatomy that’s now hard and wanting. He keeps working me over until there’s not an inch of my leg that he hasn’t dug his palms into.
“That’s the wrong leg,” I finally manage to get out.
“Is it?” Spencer asks, the corner of his mouth lifting, revealing his dimple. He kills me, and I willingly walk into the fire every time he beckons me into it with that smile. “Oops.”
There’s no oops about it, the fucker. He knows what he does to me, and he deliberately provokes it. As much as he doesn’t want to touch my dick, he wants me to want him to. Torture and pleasure all wrapped up in a man with bleached-blond hair and brown eyes that fucking twinkle as though he isn’t the devil himself in pretty packaging.
He switches legs, giving it the same treatment until I’m so fucking hard that I’m going to need to have a shower to take care of it. His thumb grazes the side of my dick, and it twitches, almost like it’s reaching out for him, begging for more than a cursory glance. If all it took was begging, I would gladly do it in a second.
“You might want to take care of that,” Spencer says quietly, his deep voice washing over me.
“I plan to,” I say through gritted teeth. “My leg’s fine now; you can let go.”
He does another round of both legs before finally giving me some temporary relief from his touch. When he stands, his dick is level with my face. Soft. Not even half-mast. He enjoys the thrill of working me up, but it does nothing for him. I wish that knowledge would make my dick go down, but it doesn’t. The anguish and longing all swirl with lust and a feverish greed to be consumed by him. A familiar feeling that leaves me empty and wanting and somehow satisfied at the same time. As long as he’s near, I’ll take any of it. All of it. Whatever he gives. That’s all I need for my life to have meaning.
His gaze follows me as I move into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind me.
I wish I could hate him. Even a little bit. But I can’t. He’s the only light in my world.
His touch lingers in my mind as I get into the shower and take myself in hand. I’m leaking into my palm. It won’t take long. I come with his name on my lips, his smile imprinted in my mind. I can’t even conjure a nameless, faceless man to think about. It’s only him.
Always him.
He’s not in the lounge or the kitchen when I come out, towel wrapped around my hips, hair dripping water down my chest. I pad barefoot across the space, checking the front door. Locked, of course; Spencer will have checked that and all the windows.
He’s already in my bed, under the deep-red covers and propped up with two matching pillows, a book open in his hands. A biography about the razor gangs that dominated the Sydney streets in the late 1920s, with two women locked in a war at the helm. Women are fucking terrifying.
“Where are your glasses?” I ask, already knowing his response.
“In the bin,” he says absently.
“I hope you kept my place.”
Without looking up, he taps the bookmark that’s still sitting snug at the halfway mark. A gift from him years ago. The book itself is also from him.
I toss the towel over an open drawer on my tallboy and head across the room to the built-in wardrobe, the dark-grey carpet soft under my feet. It’s still fucking freezing—winter is well and truly kicking in now—and we haven’t turned any heating on, but I know how hot Spencer runs, so I only grab a new pair of briefs, tugging them on.
“Did you have a good shower?”
I’m not answering that. I got off, and he’s more than aware of that. There’s no use talking about the rest of it. “Did you set an alarm?” I ask instead, changing the subject to something somewhat safer. As if any conversation is safe. He could be reading a shopping list, and my body would still react to him.
“One hour,” Spencer confirms. “I sent Six a text, letting him know what we need.”
That makes me pause. “He’s at work already?” It’s early even for him and his workaholic boyfriend.
“Don’t think so. He hasn’t replied.”
The second I slide in beside him, he closes the book and drops it on the bedside table. He flicks off the lamp, and we’re plunged into complete darkness, the curtains closed and blocking everything out.
“Your hair’s still wet,” Spencer says, running a hand through it. Even like this, the curls are still firmly in place. A curse inherited from my mother. It’s not a good idea to go to bed with it still dripping like this; it gets the pillow all wet and ends up even more unruly than usual when I wake up. I’m too tired to bring myself to care. It’s already going to be a long day, and I’m not wasting nap time drying my hair.
“Yeah.”
He twirls a strand around his index finger, then uses the hold to tug me forward into a light kiss. A whimper almost slips out before I bite it back. The urge to flick his lips open with my tongue and dive in is too strong after that shower.
“Turn around for me?” he whispers, granting me reprieve. As soon as I do, he tugs me back and into his arms, his breath warm and caressing the back of my neck. The heat from his chest, like a hot water bottle, will keep me warm for as long as I need.
He rests his palm over my heart, the gesture so fucking appropriate that it hurts.