Chapter 1 #3
When I stand, she's unfocused. Lips parted. Chest heaving. Her arousal is smeared across my beard and I don't wipe it off.
I brace myself above her, unzip, shove my jeans down far enough to free my cock. Then grab a condom from my wallet. She watches me roll it on and goes still. Her throat bobs. The look on her face goes past want into need. Bracing for what she's only imagined.
"Turn around," I say.
Her lungs seize. She turns, palms flat on the door. I run one hand down the curve of her spine, anchor the other on her hip, and line myself up. The head of my cock notches against her entrance. She's soaked, swollen, and the heat coming off her makes my gut knot.
"You tell me to stop—"
"I won't." Fast. Almost fierce. "I won't."
I push into her in one hard stroke, burying myself to the hilt.
She cries out, loud and ragged. Her whole body seizes around me, so tight it hurts. A tremor runs through her thighs as her forehead falls to the door, breathing fast and shallow. Her nails scrape the paint.
"Fuck." I can barely get the word out. She's gripping me, every inch of her wrapped around my cock. "You feel unreal."
She pushes back into me before I finish the sentence. Grinding against me as if I might disappear.
I don't.
I pin her hips to the door and fuck her. Hard. Deep. A pace that makes the hinges rattle. One hand fisted in her hair, pulling her head back so I can get my mouth on her neck. She arches, back bowed, ass pushing into me.
"Knox." My name breaks in her mouth.
"Take it," I growl into her ear. "You wanted this. Take all of it."
She whimpers. Her hand scrambles at the door, finds nothing, lands on my wrist where I'm pinning her hip. Her rhythm is off. She's chasing mine instead of finding her own, adjusting in small, uncertain corrections. When she finally matches me, the sound she makes is raw enough to strip paint.
She's getting close again. The way she tightens, pulses, bearing down in waves that make my vision go white at the edges.
"You're going to come on my cock," I tell her. "I can feel you trying to hold it."
"I can't—it's too—"
"You can. Let go."
I let go of her hair. Reach around, find her clit, and circle it with two slick fingers while I drive into her from behind. She detonates. Screaming into the door, her walls squeeze me so hard I have to grit my teeth to keep from coming with her.
I pull out while she shakes. Spin her around. Lift her. Her legs lock around my waist. Soaked. Dripping down my abs.
Three steps to the bed. I drop her on her back. She bounces, hair tangled across the pillow, eyes blown so wide I can barely see the color.
I'm on her before she catches her breath. Pin both her wrists above her head with one hand. Drive into her with a thrust that shoves her up the mattress.
"Look at me," I say.
She does. Blown-dark eyes, wet lashes, mouth swollen from my teeth.
"You're mine tonight," I tell her. "Every inch of you. Every sound. Mine."
"Yours," she whispers.
I fuck her into the mattress. There's no other word for it.
Deep, punishing strokes that make the headboard crack against the wall.
She latches on, legs locked at my back, and takes them all.
Her tits bounce with the force of it. Her mouth hangs open, small punched-out sounds escaping with each snap of my hips.
I release her wrists. She grabs my shoulders, nails raking down my back hard enough to draw blood. I hiss through my teeth and drive deeper. Then hook her knee over my shoulder, fold her nearly in half, and the angle change makes her eyes roll back.
"Oh god. Oh fuck, Knox—"
"That's it." I grind into her clit with each thrust, my cock hitting so deep there's nowhere left to go. "Give me another one. I want to feel you come around me."
"I can't—"
"You can." I press my thumb to her clit, hard, and grind in a circle while I pound into her. "Come for me. Now."
She shatters a third time. Sobbing my name, back arched off the bed, she clenches around my cock in pulses that milk me over the edge. I bury myself deep and come so hard my arms give out. My weight sinks onto her, face buried in her neck, and her heartbeat slams into my chest.
I don't pull out right away. Forehead pressed to hers. Breathing her air. Her legs tremble around me. My cock twitches inside her and she whimpers, oversensitive, fingers biting into my biceps.
When I finally lift away, she flinches. A small, involuntary thing she covers by rolling onto her side. I strip the condom off, tie it, and toss it toward the trash. Then I'm behind her, pulling her flush to my chest.
"Hey." I push damp hair off her face. "You good?"
She nods against me. "Yeah." Her voice is thin. Wrecked. "I'm good."
She traces the tattoo on my forearm where it's wrapped around her waist, one finger unhurried and wondering, as though she's memorizing proof that this happened.
She burrows into me with desperate precision, refusing any distance between us.
I hold her tighter and tell myself it's just chemistry.
That this is what happens when two people wreck each other.
Then, quiet and rough, I say, "You're a goddamn problem."
She stiffens, then lets out a sound that could be a laugh or a sob. "Maybe," she whispers.
My arms lock around her. "The kind I'm not ready to walk away from."
She doesn't answer. Ribs braced, body tense, hand clamped on mine where it rests on her stomach.
I'm going to see her again.
This is usually where things settle. Tonight, nothing does.
The name she gave me sits on my tongue. Lena.
A lie I swallowed without flinching. I just had the most honest hour of my life with a woman I can't even call by her real name.
The adrenaline from the job cools by degrees, like metal left out in the dark.
What replaces it is worse. A coil under my ribs, restless and ugly, that won't unfurl.
She turns in my arms, burying her face in my throat. I draw her in until we're flush, heart hammering into hers. Her breath rocks my throat; she fits against me in a way that makes me want to stay, and I don't stay.
Outside, the city hums indifferently. Inside, the room is sweat, cheap soap, and the sharp sweetness of her. I should be planning my exit. Instead, my hand spreads wide on the small of her back, a claim I don't have the right to make.
I close my eyes. All my training says get up, get dressed, disappear before she wakes. My body doesn't move. The coil tightens once more, then holds.