Chapter 20
VAUGHN
The first thing I see when I open my eyes is red hair.
It’s fanned out across my pillow like copper threads someone tossed carelessly over white fabric.
Riley is lying on her stomach, head turned to the side, one arm buried under the pillow, the other stretched across the mattress.
The duvet slipped down during the night, only covering her thighs.
Her bare back lies open before me. The curve of her spine, the narrow waist, the freckles on her shoulder blades.
There are seven freckles in total. I know this because I kissed each one, and because my brain has apparently decided to store useless data about this woman instead of focusing on the actual plan.
Morning light seeps through the shutters, laying warm stripes across her skin. She breathes steadily. Her mouth is slightly open. In her sleep, she looks even younger, as if the night has sanded away the last remains of suspicion.
Then I notice that my cock is remarkably hard again.
Not the slow morning wood that comes and goes on its own. But hard in a way that is directly connected to the naked woman beside me, to the scent of her skin on my pillow, to the memory of her voice when she screamed my name, and to the image of her eyes when she looked at me and said: I want you.
I should get up. Make coffee and write yesterday off as a slip-up. Ultimately, I’m just a man who needs release now and then. But was it just that? My animal instinct leading us into bed?
I should get up and leave her alone in this room. Instead, I lie here, unable to stop thinking that this woman triggers something in me I haven't felt in a long time.
Riley stirs suddenly, mumbling something incomprehensible. She rolls onto her side, and her eyes open. Green and sleepy. She blinks at me as if she has to remember where she is first. Then she sees me, and a smile spreads across her face—one that shouldn't fit this situation at all.
“Morning,” she says.
“Morning.”
She stretches, and the duvet slides even lower. Her breasts are exposed, nipples peaked in the cool morning air. She makes no move to cover herself. In Vegas, she was ashamed in cotton underwear. Now she lies naked beside me and smiles.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“I am.”
“Do you like what you see?”
“You like it when I stare.”
She laughs, tosses the pillow at my head, and swings her legs out of bed. I watch her bare back, her hips, her ass, as she walks down the hall. Barefoot, without looking back, fully aware that I’m watching her.
The bathroom door closes. Seconds later, I hear the rush of the shower.
I stay in bed, but my cock throbs under the covers. The rational part of my brain tells me again to get up, make coffee, and assess the situation professionally. The rest of my brain—especially the part below my belt—has a fundamentally different opinion.
I get up and go into the bathroom.
The room is already full of steam. The shower has no stall, just a tiled partition where the hot water steams over.
Riley is standing with her back to me under the stream, head tilted back, eyes closed.
The water runs over her hair, her neck, her shoulders, her back, follows the curve of her ass and flows over her legs onto the tiles.
She hears me, but she doesn't turn around.
“Took you long enough,” she says.
I step behind her into the spray. The heat hits my skin like a blow.
My chest presses against her back. My hard cock presses against her backside.
She inhales sharply, but she doesn't back away.
On the contrary—she leans into me, the back of her head against my collarbone, and the water flows over us both like a warm curtain.
My hands find her hips. I hold her steady, thumbs on her hip bones, fingers on her stomach. My mouth finds the spot behind her ear, where her pulse flutters under the wet skin.
“Vaughn,” she whispers.
I don't answer with words. My right hand slides down from her hip. Across her stomach, through the short hair between her legs, until my fingers find her. Wet, and not just from the water. Warm and swollen and ready.
She moans softly. Her head falls back against my shoulder. Her hand reaches for my thigh, and her fingers dig into my wet flesh.
I rub her slowly. Circling. I know the rhythm she needs—not too fast, not too firm, exactly at the point where her breath changes and her legs start to tremble. My thumb and middle finger work together while the hot water pours over us and the steam reduces the world to this one room.
Riley turns her head and seeks my mouth. The kiss is wet and slick, tasting of water and heat. Her tongue against mine. Her moan in my mouth. Her hip moving rhythmically against my hand.
“Give it to me,” she pants against my lips. “Now.”
I turn her around. Her back hits the wet tiled wall. She flinches—the tiles are cooler than the water—but then she wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me close.
I reach under her right knee and lift her leg. My hand is under the crook of her knee, her foot hovering over the wet floor. She is open to me, vulnerable, leaned against a wall with nothing but my body for support.
“Hold on tight,” I say.
Her fingers claw into my shoulders. I position myself and enter her. Hard and deep. No warning, no slow slide like last night. Her body takes me in with a wet, hot resistance that gives way instantly, and she cries out—not from pain, but from surprise and desire.
The water drums against my back. Steam envelops us. I thrust into her, rhythmic, controlled, and the acoustics of the small room turn every sound into an echo—her moans, my breath, the slap of wet skin on wet skin.
Riley clings to me. Her free leg locks around my hip, pulling me deeper. Her heel digs into my backside. Her nipples rub against my wet chest with every thrust.
“Harder,” she gasps.
I obey. My thrusts become faster, deeper. I press her harder against the wall, my full weight holding her there, and she surrenders to me with a lack of restraint that tears my control apart. Her internal muscles grip my cock with every retreat, as if her body refused to let me go.
“Vaughn—oh god—” Her voice breaks. Her nails bore into my back.
I feel her tightening, her core starting to pulse, and then she comes with a cry that echoes off the tiles and vibrates in my bones.
Her whole body trembles. Her legs nearly give out, but I hold her, pressing her against the wall, fucking her through her climax until every last twitch has run through her body.
I follow seconds after her. Deep inside her. A jolt that seizes my entire body and makes my knees weak. I groan against her neck, and the hot water washes away our sweat before it can settle on the skin.
We stand like that. Panting. Wet. Entwined. The water drums down on us, filling the silence that comes after the storm.
Riley laughs. A breathless, unbelieving laugh that vibrates in her chest.
“I actually just wanted to take a shower,” she says.
“Mission accomplished,” I say. “You’re showered.”
She swats my wet shoulder. Then she kisses me, slow and soft, and the water turns colder, and we don't care.
We dry off. Riley wraps a towel around her hair and a second around her body, heading toward the bedroom.
I follow her, a towel around my hips, and as I step through the door, she stands at the bed and lets both towels drop.
Just like that. She turns to me, naked and wet and completely unapologetic in her ease.
“Come here,” she says.
It’s not a request; it’s the instruction of a woman standing before me who is no longer the frightened hostage, but someone who has started making decisions about her own body. Perhaps for the first time.
I let my towel drop and go to her. She pushes me onto the bed. I land on my back, and she climbs over me, her knees on either side of my hips, her wet hair dripping onto my chest.
“I want to try something,” she says. Her cheeks are flushed. Not with shame—with excitement. “I read about it.”
“Read about it,” I repeat.
“I’m an analyst. I research everything.”
I suppress a laugh. This woman likely handled her sexual education in online forums and scientific articles, and now she wants to test the practice.
She turns around. Her knees move beside my head, her ass hovering over my face, and her hands rest on my thighs. My cock, which had only just begun to recover from the shower, leaps instantly back into alertness.
“Simultaneously,” she says over her shoulder. “I want us to—at the same time—”
“I know what you want.” I place my hands on her hips and pull her down to me. “Come here.”
Her core lowers onto my mouth. She tastes of water and herself, salty and sweet and intoxicating. My tongue finds her clitoris, and she flinches and moans as if someone had closed a circuit.
At the same moment, I feel her lips on my cock. Hesitant at first, experimental, as if she were studying the shape. Then bolder. Her tongue slides over the head, circling it, and a hot flash shoots through my core.
We find a rhythm. Her tongue on me, mine on her. Action and reaction, giving and taking in a loop that intensifies with every second. Her hips begin to move against my mouth, small, circular thrusts, while she takes me deeper into her mouth.
My fingers dig into her hips. I suck at her clitoris, and she moans around my cock, the vibration sending a shockwave through my entire body.
“Fuck,” she gasps, pulling away for a second. “That is—”
She doesn't finish the sentence. Instead, she takes me back into her mouth, deeper, her hand encircling the base of my cock, moving in time with her lips.
I increase the pressure of my tongue. Faster. More focused. I know her body now—the signs that betray it. The trembling in her thighs. The way her abdominal muscles tighten. The low whimpering that precedes the scream.
Riley comes first. Her hips press onto my mouth, her core pulsing against my tongue, and she screams—muffled, because my cock is in her mouth, and the sound goes straight through my flesh, hitting me like an electric shock.
I follow her. My climax builds like a wave too big to stop.
My hips thrust upward, but I don't want to release in her mouth, so I slide out from under her and lie on top of her from behind.
Then I drive my cock into her still-twitching core and thrust several times firmly until I can no longer hold back.
I release inside her with an irrepressible force, and for a moment the world is nothing but heat and pulse and the sound of two people stopping their breath at once.
Riley turns over and drops onto the mattress beside me. We lie side by side, staring at the ceiling. Our chests rise and fall in the same exhausted rhythm.
“Research complete?” I ask.
“Results exceed the study's expectations.” She turns her head to me and grins. It’s the widest, freest grin I’ve ever seen on her face. “But the sample size is still too small for a definitive conclusion.”
We lie like that for a while before hunger becomes greater than the lethargy, and I get up to go into the kitchen to make breakfast.
Scrambled eggs. Toast. Black coffee. For two.
As I stand in the kitchen, I realize that I have to slowly but surely tell her what I’ve been hiding from the beginning. And once she finds out, I’m not sure she’ll survive it.