Chapter 6 #2
A raven near his collarbone, a map on one arm and flowers down the other. Script I cannot read along his ribs. Fine lines disappearing low beneath the waistband of his jeans.
I stare.
Then I stare some more.
He does not move.
His face is blank and almost… defensive? Like he just took off more than his shirt.
“You hide those,” I say, thinking about his long shirt in the hot summer heat.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Habit.”
I know that’s not the whole answer, but tonight is not for prying open wounds.
So I step closer instead. I lift one hand and stop just before touching his chest. “Can I?”
His expression changes. It softens. “Yes.”
I place my palm against him.
His skin is warm and I feel his steady heartbeat under my palm. He inhales through his nose, controlled but absolutely not unaffected by this.
I trace the raven with one fingertip. “They’re beautiful,” I say.
His chest moves. For a second, he says nothing.
Then, quietly, “They’re not for everyone.”
I close my eyes. “Neither am I.”
When I open them, he’s looking right at me.
He kisses me. There is no wall between us this time. No jokes. Only his hands sliding beneath the hem of my tank, his palms hot against my back, and my body answering so fast I almost resent it.
Clothes come off in pieces. My tank, his boots, my jeans, his belt. Each thing discarded feels less like undressing and more like undoing.
This week, or maybe the ring, or maybe the shame. The version of me that stood in that office and wondered how long everyone else had known I was a fool.
He kisses the inside of my wrist, then moves to my shoulder.
He drops to his knees.
Kisses the scar on my knee from dropping a sheet pan a few years ago.
The soft part of my stomach.
I tense.
His eyes look up at me. “Don’t hide from me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
I force myself to breathe. To stop sucking in and trying to flatten myself into some edited version of a woman who does not have a body, or pain, or scars, or too many feelings or too much skin.
His hands spread over my waist. “There you are,” he says.
“Don’t be nice to me now.”
“I’m not being nice.”
“No?”
“No.” His mouth lowers, brushing over my ribs. “I’m being honest.”
I have no defense against him. None at all.
He eases me down onto the mattress, covering me with his body but holding enough weight off me that I never feel trapped. The mattress drops with our weight, and the blue bee pillow falls off the side like it’s decided to give us privacy.
Somewhere outside, a siren’s wail fades.
He kisses me until my hands shake and my breath breaks. Until want turns hotter than any memory.
When his mouth moves down my body, my thoughts scatter.
He’s still careful. Infuriatingly so. Attentive in a way that makes it impossible to turn my brain off.
Every sound I make changes something in him.
Every arch, every gasp, every yes puts more heat in his eyes, more roughness in his breath, and more proof that control costs him.
I want it to cost him more. I want him wrecked. As undone as I feel.
His fingers hook into my underwear, and he looks up.
I nod.
He does not move.
“Yes, please,” I cry.
“Say it.”
My thighs press together automatically, and his gaze drops before lifting back to my face. I should be embarrassed, but I’m not.
“Yes,” I say. “Take them off.”
He does. Slowly.
Then his mouth is on me, and the room dissolves.
I grab the sheet with one hand and his hair in the other, ruining the bun completely. Dark strands come loose around my fingers, thick and softer than anything about him looks.
He groans against me when I pull, the sound and vibration hitting me like heat lightning.
I moan loudly. Once, twice, and then I lose count.
He doesn’t rush. He takes me apart carefully with his tongue, with the kind of focus that makes me feel like I’m the only thing he ever wanted to do right.
His hands hold my thighs open; his mouth is filthy, patient, and perfect.
I am going to die above this bar, and the police report is going to be humiliating.
My hips jerk, and he holds me steady, his eyes finding mine as his mouth sucks on my sensitive nub.
His hand comes down, rubbing circles over my clit as he watches me. “There,” he murmurs, his voice rough against me. “That’s it.”
I make a sound I would deny in court.
He does it again.
Slower and meaner.
My head falls back into the mattress, my back arching.
“Oh my God.”
“Not quite.”
My eyes fly open, and his gaze lifts to mine from between my thighs.
Oh.
He’s calm. Too calm.
“You’re not allowed to be funny during this,” I say, breathless.
His mouth is on me again, and I lose the rest of the sentence.
Pleasure builds low and hot, gathering in a way that makes my whole body tighten. I pull his hair again, harder this time, and his answering groan sends me right over the edge.
“Fuck,” I moan.
“I know.”
He does.
God help me, he does.
When I come, it shocks me. Not because it happens, but because of how hard it rocks me.
Pleasure snaps through me o sharply I nearly sob.
My back arches, my fingers tighten in his hair.
His hands hold my hips down, his mouth staying exactly where I need until the last tremor leaves me shaking and teary-eyed on the mattress.
For a second, I hate how vulnerable I feel.
Then he kisses his way back up my body, and I hate that less.
I shove his shoulder, and he stops immediately.
I catch his face between both hands. “Too careful,” I say.
His eyes search mine.
I kiss him before he can ask another responsible question.
He answers with a low sound and finally, finally lets some restraint crack.
His weight settles more fully over me. His mouth turns rougher, and his grip on my hips tightens before moving to my thighs. He spreads me beneath him with a surety that makes my breath hitch.
This is what I wanted.
I reach between us for the button of his jeans, his abdomen tightening under my knuckles.
“Hey,” he says.
“I swear to God, if you’re going to ask if I’m sure again—”
He laughs. A real one. Low and brief but beautiful.
I freeze.
He freezes too, as if it surprised him.
I smile slowly. “Oh, I’m keeping that.”
“Keeping what?”
“That laugh.”
“You’re not.”
“I am. I collect rare things.”
He kisses me hard, but I think it’s just to shut me up.
I get his jeans open.
He pushes his jeans down along with his briefs, and when he stands, I look.
And then I look again.
Heat rushes through me so fast I forget every language I have ever pretended to know.
Because yes. He’s big. Very big, in fact. A lot bigger than I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.
There is no polite internal phrasing available. My brain opens a tiny file labeled concern and immediately lights it on fire.
But that is not what makes my mouth go dry.
The piercing catches the lamplight.
A small flash of metal that makes absolutely no sense on the severe man from downstairs who orders black coffee and talks like an instruction manual.
I stare.
The silver barbell goes through the side of his tip, one bead catching the light, the other resting just under the crown.
Slowly, I lift my eyes to his.
His expression is unreadable, like usual. Except for the heat.
“You’re pierced,” I say.
His jaw works. “Yes.”
“I can see that.”
“You can.”
I swallow.
“Is it…” I stop, then laugh at myself because apparently I can say so many unhinged things in public but fall apart in front of one pierced man in my apartment. “Does it feel good?”
His gaze darkens. “For me?”
I nod.
“Yes.”
“For the woman?”
“If she likes it.”
Oh. I like this version of him.
“That was a very practical answer.”
“I’m a practical man.”
“You have a pierced dick.”
His mouth twitches. “Practical men can’t?”
“I’m updating my worldview.”
“Tell me when you’re done.”
“I may need several business days.”
He kisses the laugh out of me.
There’s a condom in his wallet because, obviously, this stranger is the kind of man who comes prepared for emergencies, hydration, and sex with equal seriousness.
He puts it on with hands that are not quite as steady as they were at the bar, and I wrap my hands around his wrist before he comes back over me.
He looks at me.
“I want this,” I say before he can ask.
His eyes soften. “I know.”
“I want you.”
His control fractures, but only for a second.
He’s between my thighs in a second, his body hot and heavy over mine, and there is no room left for Grant or shame or any version of me who wondered whether she was desirable only when she was convenient.
He enters me slowly.
Carefully.
Even then, I gasp.
He stops immediately.
“Good?” he asks, voice strained.
I dig my nails into his shoulders. “Good.”
He moves another inch.
The stretch is intense. Full and overwhelming in the kind of way that makes me cling to him and breathe through it. The piercing adds a bright, strange pressure that sends sparks up my spine.
I make a sound I cannot control, and his head drops beside mine. “Still good?”
“Stop asking me like a gentleman and move.”
His breath leaves him in something like a growl.
Then he moves.
Not fast, not at first.
Deep. Controlled. Measured in a way that feels obscene because I know he’s holding back, and I can feel the strength of him in every thrust.
I wrap my legs around his hips.
“More.”
His hand tightens on my thigh.
“Fuck,” he says.
“Please,” I cry. “More.”
That does it.
He gives me more.
The mattress shifts beneath us, the old springs complaining as my hands slide over his tattooed shoulders and down his back. His hair falls around his face, completely loose, making him look wilder. Less severe somehow. Less untouchable.
I want every hidden thing. I want this night to have no past and no morning. I want to be exactly this woman, under exactly this man, asking for exactly what I want and getting it.
His mouth finds mine. The kiss is messy now. Less practiced and much more desperate. His hands slide between us, the angle changing. The piercing drags just right, and I break away from his mouth with a sharp cry.
“Oh God!”
“I know.”