Chapter Sixteen
SIXTEEN
Oliver
Anything can happen. I’ve told myself that since I was a teenager struggling to maintain a Glaswegian dialect for a job. Gain trust from the mark by also being born from the same city—in this case, Glasgow, Scotland. Easy.
Eh, it was challenging. It challenged me. So, naturally, I loved every second. I loved being so close to failure that I had to push myself to the brink of what I believed I could do.
Anything can happen.
I’ve stopped being surprised at what can go right and what can go wrong. At curveballs. At breaking balls. At fastballs. I’d like to believe I can hit every single hundred-mile-an-hour pitch out of the park. Until tonight with Hailey.
I don’t know what she threw at me. I just know it struck me in the face.
I get a reprieve from this whole thing with Jake when he takes his hands off the wheel, says he’ll shower, and leaves me alone with Hailey. He’s not a dumb dude, so he knows I’m going to help her sleep.
He cares more about her well-being than fighting with me. I’d have some major issues with him if he didn’t put her first, and if Hailey fell for this guy—like actually, truthfully fell—then I already know he’s more good than bad.
I just always imagined Carter would be the threat to my relationship with Hailey. Then he popped in less and less over the years, and our wandering forger felt more like her fantasy than a serious reality.
This, with Jake, is real.
It’s stirring new feelings in me. Fears I didn’t think I’d encounter. I’d rather be on an acid trip than tripping over insecurities.
“Hey. Olly.” Hailey clutches my cheeks with two palms, questions in her gaze about where I’m drifting to, apologies, but she has nothing to be sorry about.
Anything can happen.
I like a focus. A goal.
Tonight, I want to ensure she sleeps more than three hours.
“Hailstorm,” I whisper sensually against the pit of her ear, then I lift her in my arms. Carrying her to the bed with her legs wrapped around my waist, I nip her bottom lip, then kiss her with a famished hunger.
Loving her cold metal piercings against my mouth.
Her arms swoop around my shoulders, and her kisses are passionate, deep, familiar.
She warms my blood in ways no one else ever has. There’s quiet comfort in being with Hailey that I can’t get when I fuck other girls. There always has been, and for me, it’s why I’ve kept returning to her again and again.
It’s not long before we’re under the silk sheets and heavy comforter. Not long before I’ve ripped off her mesh top and she’s slid off her cargo pants. Not long before she’s drawn my black shirt over my head. Not long before we’re buzzing, sweaty naked messes of skin and muscle and too much heart.
My heart bleeds all over Hailey. She’s the only one who’s ever had all of me, the real me, in my entirety.
Her gasps of pleasure sound thunderous in my ears as I keep her tucked close to my chest. She’s hiked her slender leg over my waist, facing me on her side.
My fingers build friction inside her swollen pussy.
My thumb teases her clit. I watch her breath shorten and shorten like she’s fighting for each intake of oxygen, and I don’t slow my raid inside her.
Hailey tries to squeeze my erection, tries to consume my arousal as a groan scratches out of my throat, but I love the game we play where I get her so completely lost in the moment that she forgets to make me come.
She’s about there when the bathroom door opens. I don’t stop. Hailey can’t see Jake in the doorway. He grips a white towel low at his waist, water still dripping down his carved jawline, his eyes darting to the dresser, where I’m guessing his clothes lie.
Her back is to him, her face buried against my chest. She’s clinging on to me while I finger-bang her under the sheets. I watch Jake consider making the trek to the dresser until Hailey releases a whimpering, gasping moan, and his attention falls back to me.
He’s more interested in what I’m doing to her. Which I get, seeing as how I watched her blow him with a similar caution and intrigue.
Heat expels off her trembling body. The two of us, slick with sweat.
She’s let go of my hard cock. She’s clawing at my flexed abs.
I can’t tear my focused eyes off Jake. Not while Hailey cries out like the intensity, the unrelenting speed and pumping inside her, is blissful pain—and normally I’d cage her noises.
We’re very efficient at sneaking around, after all.
But something in me wants Jake to see me summoning her climax. To show him what I can do to her, to show him that I’m necessary. He locks in on my challenging gaze, not backing down or shying away.
My muscles pull taut with each intense second he’s fixed on me. I breathe through my nose, my jaw grinding down, blood pooling in my cock. I want to break through his stoicism.
Another goal.
I need to finish this one. Hailey’s cries sputter into sharp breaths, and while I stare at Jake, I whisper to her, “Come for me.” Her hips arch into my hand, and I feel her pulsate around my fingers, then I rub her clit.
She spasms violently into my chest, and I hold her tight while I overwork the sensitivity.
Her orgasm is like an exploding battery. It drains her. She has nothing left when she comes undone.
Jake has held strong on my gaze. My body is burning. Her high-pitched cries become soft aching whimpers. Her limbs go slack, and I tell her, “Good girl.”
His jaw tics. She liked it when he said it, and he should know by now, I’m a trained imitator.
He finally leaves the doorway to retrieve clothes from the dresser. I concentrate on Hailey, peeling damp pieces of platinum hair off her cheeks. Her eyes stay closed, her head sinking into the feather pillow, and her breath slowing.
She murmurs my name as she drifts off, and my ribs constrict around my lungs. I don’t want to lose her. I never thought I could until tonight. She knows settling down hasn’t been in my blood. It’s why she envisioned a future with Carter and not me.
Just sex.
Maybe it never really was just sex. Hailey has always been a constant for me. Now I’m more afraid Jake is going to stick around and be one for her.
Carefully, gingerly, I slip out of the bedsheets. Buck naked. I’m at half-mast, but Jake isn’t staring at my dick. Confusion fills his face while he steps into boxer briefs. I glance downward.
He’s huge and also at half-mast.
I feel my body tighten. I’m a shaken soda bottle with the cap too tightly screwed.
“I’m not leaving,” I whisper, hopefully answering his silent question. “I’m spending the night with her.” Then I push my shoulders into the cracked bathroom, trying to relax. I grab the door so it won’t slam and quietly shut it.
I go to wash my hands. Please be a decent hand soap. I read the ingredients label on the black dispenser and cringe at the synthetic fragrances. That’ll dry out my skin.
I wash my hands anyway.
Then I towel my palms off and inspect my jawline, the skin rough with stubble.
Hailey likes it, but I think it’s because she knows I obsess over shaving.
My features sometimes feel ever-changing.
I haven’t had my natural dark brown hair since I was a kid.
Haven’t held a tan the past few years to distance myself from the last job when I did.
My olive skin lacks blemishes after I lasered off a mole on my bicep and thigh.
This is the longest I’ve gone without changing my eye color.
Still thankful I didn’t wear colored contacts when I came to Victoria.
(I don’t need to pretend to be blue-eyed for over a year.) This is, without question, the longest I’ve ever maintained one appearance.
Don’t freak out, Oliver.
I crack my stiff neck, then glance down at my grip on the sink. My knuckles have started to scar. I’ll need to figure out how to get rid of those for the next job.
Don’t freak the fuck out, Oliver.
I squat down to the cupboard. Let’s see what the dear old homicidal dad keeps stocked. I rummage through a basket of toiletries. Happy to find a straight razor and shave cream. Ingredients—Not bad.
I rise and warm a hand towel under hot water, press the damp cloth to my face, then rub in some cream along my jaw, and I begin to shave. It’s not even close to my normal skincare routine, but my body untenses as I slide the razor up my cheek.
“Hey.”
I swing my head at Jake’s abrupt appearance, but I don’t move the razor. I wince as I accidentally slice my own cheek. Shit.
Shit. There’s blood. What a night. I’m very much off my A game.
“Fuck,” Jake curses, hurrying farther in the bathroom.
Quickly, I throw the razor in the sink, seeing droplets of blood on the white porcelain. “Show-and-tell just for you, Koning,” I banter. “Con artists do bleed.”
“Here.” He presses a warm towel to the side of my face.
I stifle the urge to wince. His large palm sheathes my cheek with extra pressure and force like the cut might be deep.
Tension stretches; I’m all too aware of his caring act toward me.
His eyes flit over me. “I didn’t think you could be snuck up on,” he says.
“My beauty is a powerful thing. It even distracts me.” I bear the back of my skull against the dark striped wallpaper, staring into him while I reach up to my face. He lets go of the washcloth when I take over, our fingers brushing in the exchange.
I hold it to my stinging cheek and try to relax my muscles. I try not to care about this fucking cut while I’m sharing his company. Don’t care that he sees my dick, but I care about a grotesque scar.
I’m hooked on his sky-blue eyes. “Distracting you yet?” I ask, hoping he’s thinking about me making Hailey come.
Jake nods slowly, ramping up the heat in the bathroom, just to say, “You’ll have to try harder.”
“Hmm,” I muse. “I am a try-hard.” I wink, but even that slight movement pulls the throbbing skin of my cheek.
“Stop flirting,” he advises.