5. romeo #3
Her knee is touching my thigh. The warmth of it burns through denim and I can feel my pulse in places that have nothing to do with my heart.
She's looking at me without the armor — no suspicion, no calculation, no filed-away deflections waiting to be weaponized.
Just her. Tired. Honest. A woman who spent last night holding a screaming thirteen-year-old alone in a dark apartment and is sitting on my couch now because she texted four words and I came running.
I should say something smart. Something that keeps the arrangement intact, keeps the categories clean, keeps me on the side of the line where this is still a transaction and she is still someone I can walk away from.
"Nova."
Her name comes out of me wrecked. Low and rough and stripped of every charming syllable I've ever used to keep a woman at the exact distance I need her.
She hears it. I watch her hear it — the way her breath catches, the way her fingers curl against the leather, the way her pupils blow wide and dark until the brown is almost gone.
"This is a bad idea," she whispers.
"The worst."
"The rules—"
"Are burning."
Her eyes drop to my mouth. My blood slams so hard against my ribs I can feel it in my teeth.
She closes the last six inches between us.
Her hand finds my chest, palm flat against my sternum, and I don't know if she's pulling me in or holding me back but it doesn't matter because I'm already gone.
I was gone the moment I washed her dishes at two in the morning.
I was gone the moment her kid brother asked me to play Mario Kart. I was gone before I knew I'd left.
I kiss her and the taste of her rips through me like a lit match dropped into gasoline.
This is different from the office. The office was a collision — fast, desperate, a transaction dressed up as desire.
This is slower. Hotter. Her fingers knotting in my shirt, pulling me over her as she falls back against the armrest. My hand sliding up her thigh, her hips lifting into me, that sound she makes against my mouth — the one that lives somewhere between surrender and defiance — and my entire body ignites.
The friction sends a jolt of electricity straight to my cock. I'm hard already, painfully hard, and when she rolls her hips again, I groan into her mouth.
She swallows the sound. Her tongue meets mine, and the kiss deepens—slower now, more thorough, like we have all the time in the world even though I'm burning alive.
I can taste the terrible coffee on her breath and beneath it, something darker, something that makes me think of sweat and skin and late nights when the world shrinks to nothing but this.
My fingers find the gap between her shirt and her jeans, and I stroke the strip of bare skin at her hip. She's so warm. So impossibly warm. Her abdominal muscles tense beneath my touch, and I feel her breath hitch—a small, sharp intake of air that tells me she's as affected as I am.
She breaks the kiss for a fraction of a second, her lips still brushing mine, and looks at me. Those dark brown eyes, so close I can see the flecks of gold in them, are wide and wanting and terrified all at once. Like she's afraid of what happens next but can't bring herself to stop it.
I can't bring myself to stop it either.
I kiss her again—softer this time, slower, my lips moving against hers with a tenderness I didn't know I possessed.
My hand slides higher beneath her shirt, my palm flat against the warm skin of her stomach, and I feel her shiver.
Her fingers tighten in my hair, pulling just hard enough to sting, and the combination of pain and pleasure makes my cock throb.
Jazz still plays, soft and distant, like it's coming from another world. And Nova Vasquez is beneath me, her body arching into mine, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, and I think—this is what it feels like to fall.
y hand slides beneath the hem of her shirt, fingertips tracing the taut plane of her stomach.
Her skin burns under my touch—warm, alive, trembling with each shallow breath she takes.
I feel the definition there, the lean muscle built from years of hard work, carrying groceries up four flights and dancing six-hour shifts, and I follow the curve upward until my palm cups her breast through the thin fabric of her bra.
The heat of her seeps through the sheer material, and I can already feel the tight peak of her nipple pressing against my palm.
She inhales sharply, her back arching slightly off the cushions.
Her fingers tighten in my hair, pulling just enough to send a spike of sensation through my scalp, and I groan low in my throat.
The bra is sheer—I feel the texture of lace, the delicate pattern against my fingertips, the way her nipple hardens beneath it like it's straining toward my touch.
I glide underneath the band, finding bare skin, and my thumb and forefinger close around that tight bud.
I pinch gently, rolling the peak between my fingers, feeling it stiffen further under my attention.
Her moan breaks from her throat—raw, unguarded, the kind of sound that makes my cock throb in response.
Her hips lift off the couch, pressing upward against me, and I feel the heat of her through our clothes, that concentrated warmth radiating from her core.
She's grinding against my thigh now, her body moving on instinct, chasing something she doesn't want to name but can't stop herself from seeking.
I can't stop. Don't want to stop. The need to see her, all of her, overwhelms every rational thought in my head.
I rise abruptly, breaking contact just long enough to reach for the waistband of her pants.
My fingers find the zipper, yank it down with an urgency that makes the metal teeth whine.
She lifts her hips again—this time to help me—and I pull the fabric down her legs in one rough motion, dragging it over her calves, tossing the crumpled garment aside without looking where it lands.
Black lace panties. Of course. They hug her hips perfectly, the fabric barely covering her, a thin strip of darkness against her warm brown skin.
The lace is already damp at the center, darkened by her arousal, and the sight makes my mouth water.
I hook my fingers under the waistband and peel them off without hesitation, dragging them down her thighs, past her knees, off her ankles.
She's bare before me now, exposed, her chest heaving with each breath.
I push her legs apart—wide—and she lets me, her thighs falling open without resistance.
Her hands fall to the couch cushions, fingers gripping the fabric, knuckles whitening.
I lower myself between her thighs, and the scent of her hits me like a drug—musk and salt and something uniquely her, something earthy and intoxicating that I've been craving without knowing it.
My tongue finds her. She's soaked—wet and swollen and ready, her pussy glistening in the low light of the penthouse.
I lick through her folds, tasting her, and the sound she makes is almost a sob, a broken cry that echoes off the high ceilings.
Her hips buck, but I press my hands against her ass, gripping those firm cheeks, my fingers digging into the muscle, and I lift her to meet my mouth.
I lap at her like I'm dying of thirst, my tongue working her with a hunger that borders on desperation.
I circle her clit, then dip lower, fucking into her entrance, then dragging back up to flick against that sensitive bud.
She's rotating her hips now—slow, grinding circles that match the rhythm of my tongue, her body moving in a lazy rotation that drives me insane.
I squeeze her ass harder, lifting her higher, tilting her so I can devour her more deeply.
My tongue works her relentlessly—licking, sucking, probing, fucking into her slick hole and then dragging up to torture her clit.
Her thighs tremble against my ears. Her breathing comes in ragged gasps, punctuated by moans that grow louder with each pass of my tongue.
She tastes incredible—better than the whiskey in my cabinet, better than anything I've ever had in my mouth.
I could stay here forever, drowning in her, but she has other plans.
She sits up.
Her hands push at my shoulders, and I pull back, my chin wet with her, my mouth still hungry for more.
But she's already reaching for my belt—small fingers working the buckle with surprising dexterity, her hands always doing something, fixing, holding, reaching.
The leather hisses as she pulls it free.
Then the button. The zipper. I help her shove my pants down, and my cock springs free, hard and aching, the head already slick with precum.
She wraps her hand around me—her grip firm, confident—and strokes once, twice, her thumb smearing the precum over the head. I groan, my forehead dropping to her shoulder. Her hand feels impossibly good, but I need more. I need to be inside her. I need to fuck her until neither of us can think.
I push her back onto the couch, positioning myself between her legs.
The head of my cock nudges her entrance—hot, slick, ready.
I hesitate for just a heartbeat, looking at her face.
Her eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, her lips parted and swollen from kissing. She nods. Just once. That's all I need.
I thrust into her.
She takes me to the hilt in one stroke, and we both cry out.
She's so wet that I slide in easily, but the grip of her around my cock is devastating—hot and perfect and spread open for me.
I still for a moment, letting myself feel her, letting her adjust to my size.
Her walls flutter around me, clenching and releasing, and I have to grit my teeth to keep from coming right then.
Then I start to move.