Chapter 25
LUCY
Oh God. Oh God.
Did I really just say that?
You. One syllable. Sitting here between us, naked and completely out in the open, while Hatter goes very, very still.
Then, slowly, those dark eyes behind the mask go from warm to something that makes my stomach drop straight through the loveseat cushion. It’s not the actual color.
Well—okay, it is kind of about the color.
But it’s also a change in his entire expression. The way his lids lower. The way his jaw below his mask tightens. The faint, wicked curve at the corner of his mouth that my dark romance-loving heart immediately swoons for. Undeniably attractive and almost cruel.
Antihero romance for the win.
“You’ve been thinking about me, Alice?” His voice has dropped an entire octave. I feel it more than hear it. “What exactly have you been doing while you’ve been thinking of me?”
The way he asks, I’d swear he already knows the answer. And for the life of me—maybe it’s Smoke, but it’s more probably just straight up desire—the truth comes out anyway.
“I—” I swallow. “You know.”
“I want to hear you say it. Have you been touching yourself?”
I nod slowly. “Y-yes.”
Without breaking eye contact, he reaches over and takes my hand. I watch, completely unable to breathe, as he lifts my fingers—index and middle—and presses his lips to each one in soft, delicate, unhurried kisses.
“With these?” he asks against my fingertips. “Have you been touching yourself with these fingers while you think of me?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
My belly leaps and my mouth is suddenly full of saliva—fine, drool, alright? I’m drooling over this man right now.
He turns my hand and presses his open mouth to my palm, and I somehow feel that kiss pulse straight to my core.
“What about here?” He lips brush the heel of my hand. “Did you press this part against your clit? Move the way I moved you against my cock in the Flower Room?”
“Oh my God,” I breathe.
His smirk should be illegal. It really, truly should be.
He leans in, and I think he’s going to kiss me. I lick my lips readying for it, but he leans past and whispers in my ear.
“Do you want to feel what it’s like when your romance books come to life?”
“Yes.” I nod again, because apparently, that’s all I am now. A nodding, blushing bobblehead who has lost the ability to form sentences around this man.
Something shifts in his expression, the smugness replaced by a single-minded need of which I am the focus.
He stands from the loveseat, glances toward the camera in the corner—one of many in The Rabbit Hole. X must’ve filled him in on all of them already as the bouncer. Then Hatter’s gaze slides to me and he comes back down to lean over me.
Not sit beside me. Over me.
One knee settles beside my hip while the other shifts my thighs apart and rests in between. He braces one forearm on the armrest above my head, using his body to create a warm wall between me and the rest of the universe.
“If anyone opens that door or watches that camera,” he says quietly, “all they see is my back. Okay? No one else gets to see what I do to you.”
The promise and threat in his voice rolled all into one makes my nipples perk against my bra, and once again, all I can manage is a nod.
“Good. Now…” His free hand settles at my waist, and even that small contact makes my breath stutter. “I’m gonna need you to tell me this is what you want. Not a nod.” His eyes hold mine. “Words, Alice. Tell your Hatter what you need. Or this stops before it starts.”
The way he says it with steady patience, like he’d genuinely stop and walk away no with no hard feelings, brings an ache to my chest. And the actual words? Dear God, I can’t help feeling like this is just like a scene from my book.
“I want this,” I say clearly. “Please, Hatter.”
His jaw tics, before his hand slides from my waist and over the hem of my skirt. Then under it.
I stop breathing entirely.
“Please, what? Tell me.”
“I want you to use your fingers, The way.. The way I do,” I say quickly, swallowing before I gather my courage. “Touch me better than I touch myself.”
That wicked smile falls and nothing but pure need remains.
“Fuck, baby. You asking me that is gonna live rent free in my head for a very, very long fucking time.”
His fingers ghost up my inner thigh, barely any pressure, and the anticipation alone makes my entire body tighten. When he reaches the elastic of my thong, he doesn’t pull it aside. He just… traces it. Once. Twice. Unbearably patient. Something I most certainly am not right now.
“Hatter,” I warn. “Please—”
“I heard you.” He sounds infuriatingly calm for a man whose hand is very slightly trembling against my skin. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to change your mind.”
“I’m not changing my mind.”
“Alright then.” I watch the bob of his Adam’s apple as he hooks his fingers under the fabric and pulls it to the side.
The cool air hits me first, and I gasp. But then his fingers are next, just two, sliding slowly through my arousal, and the noise I make is genuinely obscene.
“Oh.”
“Jesus,” he mutters, his voice hoarse. “Alice. You’re soaked. You’ve been sitting here this entire time needing me like this?” He exhales hard through his teeth. “Goddammit.”
His middle finger circles my entrance slowly, testing, not pushing, and my hips roll toward him on their own. He watches my face while I do it, like he covets my reaction.
“I’m going to push inside now. Tell me to stop if—”
“Do not stop,” I breathe.
His jaw tightens and, slow at first, he pushes one finger in. I bury a moan into my own shoulder.
“Look at me,” he murmurs, and my eyes flutter open.
His gaze is locked on my face, and when his finger curls, I clench around him helplessly and watch something flicker behind his expression. He goes still for just a beat.
“Breathe, Alice,” his voice softens, and I exhale and inhale quickly, admittedly a little dizzy. “You’re incredibly tight, baby.”
My cheeks are on fire. “I’m… fine. Please don’t stop.”
His face goes tender, making my chest squeeze. I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but I don’t care when he begins to move in slow, curling strokes that build sensation like kindling catching. Then he brings the heel of his palm down to rest against my clit and—
“Oh,” I gasp at the literal stars bursting in my vision. “That—yes—I like that.”
“I can tell.” His chuckle is full of self-satisfaction, but his jaw is clenched too, so I have a feeling we are equally suffering, which is… comforting. “I felt you pulse around me.”
He works both at once, finger curling deep while his palm rocks in slow, devastating circles against my clit, and my body lights up. My thighs try to close around his hand, but his knee scoots one thigh wider.
“Another,” I manage through a moan, fisting my hands in his shirt.
He hesitates, that flicker behind his eyes again.
“You said you wouldn’t stop,” I groan.
“Easy,” he speaks against my hair, lips pressing softly to my temple. “Let me get you there first. I want you to take more of this first.”
“Ugh, fine,” I practically sob.
He chuckles lightly. “Good girl.”
Oh… oh, I have thoughts about those two words. Many, many thoughts, and all of them just make me crave more.
He works me faster, and I stop thinking entirely. The friction builds in rolling waves, every stroke of his palm pulling the tension tighter, and I give up all pretense of playing it cool. My hips being to move on their own, grinding shamelessly against his hand.
“You wanna know what I think about, bunny?” he murmurs against the shell of my ear.
“Tell me,” I breathe.
“Taking this corset off you.” His free hand grazes then stays at my ribs.
“Watching these gorgeous tits fall free. Getting my mouth on every inch of skin you’ve been hiding.
” His long finger curls deeper and I bury my broken cry into his shoulder.
“Then I’d lick all the way down your stomach, take my sweet time with your hips, and make you beg before I got anywhere close to this pussy. ”
“Hatter…” I can already feel myself letting go, and my head falls back into the cushion as heat coils low in my belly.
“And then I’d taste every drop of you.” The words land hot on my neck.
“Keep you right on the edge with my tongue, devouring you until your thighs were shaking around my head like they are around my hand right now. And then—” his palm increases pressure, and I gasp “—only then, would I give you what you actually need.”
“Which is… which is what?”
“Me, Alice.” His voice drops, and he presses his hard cock against my thigh. “My cock. Inside you where it belongs. Filling you up so full, you feel me for days. You’ll miss me by the time I’m done. And I’ll have no choice but to sink right back inside you and go again, and again, and again.”
The image hits me so hard, my whole body shudders.
His eyes drop to my mouth as his voice quiets. “Would you want that, Alice? Would you want to be filled with me, inside and out, until you couldn’t ever let me go?”
Words completely fail me. I have no idea what to say. Because how do I say, yes, near-stranger, that’s more than I could ever ask for, in fact, take me back to my boat and have your way with me now, and we’ll sail off into the sunset?
Because that’d be freaking crazy.
So when I open my mouth, having no idea what I’ll say, I’m even more shocked when a high, desperate sound escapes me involuntarily until—
He covers my mouth with his. Not gently or tentatively like the rest of what he’s done.
He kisses me, and there’s no mistaking how bad he wants me as he swallows the moan straight off my tongue.
I grip his vest tighter with both hands and yank him down.
He groans into me, and I feel it vibrate through my torso and down my spine. Then he pushes a second finger in.
The stretch burns and blooms all at once, and my nails sink his vest. My body goes rigid with the need to come undone.
“Fuck, baby, I want you.”
“I want you too.” And I don’t just mean it. I’ve never needed like this.
The closest I’ve come was wanting to kiss the prince forever ago, and although we got close, we never did. And I’m kinda glad. I don’t remember any kiss before this one, and it’d feel a little like cheating on my former masked stranger boyfriend with my new one. Yup, I’ve got a type.
“Stay with me,” he orders at my lips. “Eyes open, Alice. Look at the man who’s making you come.”
I didn’t realize I’d closed them, but I force them open. He’s right there in my vision. So close, his dark eyes searching mine, jaw set, working me with both fingers in slow and intoxicating strokes.
“There you are,” he murmurs. “Atta girl.”
Pretty sure if I wasn’t already soaked, that interaction would’ve done the trick. I begin to tremble with pleasure and my breathing breaks into soft, helpless whines.
“Let go, baby. I’ve got you.” His voice softens. “You’re safe with me. Just let go.”
“You’re safe with me.”
The tension snaps all at once, and my orgasm crashes into me so hard my back arches off the cushion, a sob catching in my throat. He catches it with his mouth again, muffling the sound of his name.
Even with his fingers inside me, it’s this, his kiss, that pulls me under.
I let go of one hand to sink my fingers into his hair and pull below the band of his mask.
He moans in my mouth and begins to grind against my thigh, the same rhythm as his fingers inside me, and I come apart completely and utterly for him in his arms.
The orgasm lasts forever, yet still somehow not enough, and I shake as I come down. His hand slows but doesn’t stop, working me through every tremor, every helpless aftershock, until I go boneless.
For a moment, all I know is our breathing, back and forth, his chest against mine, while I drink in his driftwood, bonfire scent.
“Fuck, baby.” He withdraws his fingers slowly, watching my face as I hiss.
Then he brings his slick fingers to his lips and sucks, making the most obscene, hottest noise I’ve ever heard.
“Next time,” he begins, voice sure. “I’m tasting you properly.”
My jaw drops as my mind instantly imagines the scene, but meanwhile he settles my panties back over me.
I reach for him, and slide my hand down his chest, his stomach, until I find the hard, thick line of him straining against his slacks. I curl my fingers around him, making him inhale sharply. But then he grabs my wrist.
The movement makes his pocket watch fall out, and he catches it, then with a quick flip looks at the time.
“Not tonight, baby.” He sounds almost pained, like the control is costing him.
The words sting more than I’d expect, disappointment flaring hot in my chest. I try to carefully school my face to clear the confusion and vulnerability tangling in my heartstrings as I look up at him.
Then he kisses me lightly on my lips, and I lean up to return it, but his nose just brushes mine as he pulls away.
“Why?” It comes out small, vulnerable. Ugh. How embarrassing.
The heat still lingers in his long gaze, though now, underneath it, there’s something like anguish flickering behind his eyes.
He leans down, forearm braced beside my head, and presses warm kisses to the curve of my jaw.
“When—not if I have you—when I have you,” he vows. “It won’t be in his room. On his time.” He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. “You’ll be all mine. For the entire night. No interruptions and no one else’s rules. Just you and me.”
My breath hitches and my heart does this unbearable fluttery thing that makes me dizzy.
Before I can find a single word, his hand quickly presses to his earpiece. Every soft muscle in his expression hardens, closing him up like a shutter snapping shut.
He glances at his pocket watch, and his jaw tics.
“Yeah,” he says flatly, to no one I can see. “I’ll find her.”
His mouth works, his jaw tightening as he looks at me.
“Fuck.”
Then he looks at me, and as he gets up, he holds out his hand to help me.
“Castle wants to see you.”