Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Being in a confined space with Raven makes me feel like I’m going to combust. I sit in a puddle of sweat.
Raven has an intoxicating way of just listening. I know she’s storing up every detail in that sharp brain of hers. Fuck, after the kiss, holding her hand to do her nails, then being forced into the car with her, I’m going crazy.
I take a cold shower as soon as we get back. It helps a little bit, but I still find myself wondering if Axel was doing anything to mess with Raven.
But when I sit down to start prepping for my next case, Raven comes in looking unharassed. She doesn’t mention that I have my glasses, so I don’t either. We just fall into an easy rhythm working side by side.
Although it looks like I’m working, my brain refuses to think of anything legal and just wonders about everything about Raven.
What’s her favorite food? Why is it her favorite food?
Will she tell me? It’s almost lunchtime.
Will she let me cook it for her? Why is she so distrustful? What happened with Max?
In the afternoon, Axel slides into the room. Immediately, I notice Raven’s posture change. She stiffens, tucking some hair behind her ear and refusing to let her gaze leave the papers, and I hate it. I want Raven to be able to relax.
“Can’t have you working for free, can we, baby girl?” Axel waves his hand at me. “Glasses.”
At this moment, I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone. I want to scream at him. To tell him he’s scaring her, and if he’d just stop being such a dickhead things would go okay.
But I don’t. Sometimes, it’s best not to fight with Axel. Especially right now when he looks like a dog with a bone. If he knows you want something, he’ll go after it ten times harder.
I hand the glasses over.
“I like the jeans.” Axel motions at Raven’s change into her own clothes. Although I can’t lie, I loved having her in mine.
Raven just continues on like he didn’t speak.
Axel continues to pick at Raven. After a bit, I tell him to go the fuck home, which is a mistake because it just makes Axel grin and dig in more, getting more and more flirty.
I don’t want to fight him in front of her because the last time I did that, Raven ran.
I’m guessing violence is a trigger for her.
But for all Axel’s flirting, Raven ignores him. She just nods or brushes him off, remaining stiff. Until Axel sits next to her and brushes her thigh. “Shower sex isn’t my favorite. I prefer–”
Raven shoots up, and before I realize it, her warm hand is on mine. “Kiss me.”
Her fingers close around my hand, and she tugs. Kiss her? Like, right now?
Suddenly, her face is by my ear, and her gravelly voice is saying, “Take me.”
The world stops spinning. For a single second, everything is wrapped up in that one question. Then Axel moves, and for a flash, his face holds anger, and I realize what this is. This is the game. She’s coming to me to play the game.
Raven pulls on my hand, and I get up automatically. It’s like part of my brain hasn’t checked in, and that part is stuck in the past. Stuck with Jess.
And yet, inexplicably, I let Raven move me. I move like there’s a collar attached to my neck, and Raven has the leash. Because that’s what it feels like. Where Raven goes, I follow.
She pulls me into the room and shuts the door. Immediately, I hold my hands up, remembering her hissed command the first time she did this. I won’t touch her.
There’s a blur of movement, and suddenly, I’m slamming back against the door.
Raven’s there. She’s pressing me into the door, then her hand is up in my hair, and she yanks harshly.
There’s a jolt of pain, followed very quickly by a tingling that runs through my entire body, and I let out a little moan.
Every nerve ending comes to life, and then Raven’s mouth is right there.
She’s so fucking close. It’s like she’s going to kiss me.
The blood shoots to my dick, and I lick my lips, then she disappears. There’s a flurry of movement, and the bed creaks slightly.
Right. She doesn’t need to kiss me. She just needs to slam me into the door to make it sound like she is.
I swallow around the hurt. I get the urge to run far, far away. Get in my car and disappear.
But then, a sound comes from the bed. It’s a moan, low and throaty, full of pleasure. Immediately, I lock onto the sound, feet drawing me closer.
“Don’t watch,” Raven demands.
I snap my head toward the door. It’s not like I can see, but who am I to refuse this stunning woman? The only woman who can put my brother in his place?
There’s the sound of shifting fabric, then a methodical bouncing of the springs. Is she… Is she fucking herself on my bed?
I’m stunned to silence, my dick hard as stone. Then, I realize there’s too much rustling.
My dick is throbbing painfully. The methodical bouncing continues, and Raven lets out a tiny, awkward laugh. Only, it’s half laugh, half grunt of frustration. The bouncing continues more violently, and now the springs are engaged, but it’s not very loud.
If she’s trying to get Axel to be able to hear, it’s not loud enough.
“Fuck, this is stupid.” Raven sounds livid.
I’m not sure if talking will make this worse or better, but I hate how frantic Axel’s made her.
“My bad.” I clear my throat. “I got the flat pillows. Better for my neck.”
There’s a silence where I feel myself cringe. I meant to encourage her. Flat pillows equal less resistance to hump into and, therefore, less noise. Only I’m an idiot, and I just made things worse. So I keep my head pointed at the door and raise my hands. “Want me to do it?”
Silence, then there’s a defensive huff. “I’m not… I can… It’s…”
I know both of us are thinking about Axel’s incessant hinting that he knows we didn’t fuck. It makes me angry.
“Let me help piss Axel off.” I stand, but I don't face Raven. If there’s anything I’ve learned about working with hurt creatures, it’s not to lay the pressure on like a dickhead. Let them go at their own pace.
“Fucking fine,” Raven hisses. There’s a scramble, and I hear her get off the bed. I get on the bed, realizing I just signed up to hump my pillows in front of the hottest woman I’ve ever met.
I understand now why Raven asked me to look away.
But I can still feel her tension from beside the bed. Can practically smell the way she’s sweating. I’m already making a fool of myself, so why not a little more?
I gather the pillows under my crotch and give a test hump. The bed moves, but not as much as it would if I had a real body under me. A real body like Raven.
Fuck.
I still feel her stiffness from here. She’s miserable.
I’ve spent my whole life trying to keep people from being miserable.
So, I dig my own proverbial grave and double down.
“Pillow humping, out of ten. Ratings for form, passion, and…” I trail off as I adjust the pillows so they’re closer to the headboard.
I grab the headboard as I thrust, giving a satisfying creak. “And volume.”
“Are you… making a joke?”
I want to snort. I haven’t joked in so long that I clearly don’t know how to do it. This is going very badly. Everything is going very badly. This is not the image I had in mind when I thought about doing things with Raven.
There’s a moment where I hesitate. Raven’s using me to get back at Axel. Just like Jess did.
The hurt makes my chest clench so hard I have to pull in a breath. I should definitely stop. I should definitely run the other way as fast as I can.
“A rating, huh?”
I shudder out a breath. “Yeah.”
It’s not like I’m fucking her. It’s not like Jess. This is fake.
I start humping the pillows in front of Raven. I grip the headboard and slam it forward every time I thrust, making the bed creak. I try harder, seeing if I can make it hit the wall.
I can.
I find that I don’t even need to hump as much as I do just thrust the headboard into the wall.
Besides the creaks, it’s silent. Awkwardly silent.
“Do you think he can hear?” Raven asks.
I slam the bedframe back harder. I’m sure he followed us, and I’m sure he can, but I want to get Axel off her back. To make it absolutely clear that a boning is happening in here.
So, I commit the ultimate suicide in front of Raven.
I moan.
I moan like there’s really someone under me. Like I’m sliding my dick into a hot, wet pussy. Like I’m sliding into Raven.
That is not an image I needed because now I’m fucking hard while I’m supposed to be pretending. Every little movement sends a brush of sensation to my dick, and I stiffen my hips, leaning all my energy into my forearms.
Fuck, she’d feel so good beneath me. Or on top of me. Or anywhere she wanted.
No.
Stop.
Fuck.
The groan I let out this time is real. It just makes my cheeks flush more. Despite the fact that I’m keeping my hips stiff, the movement up top is still brushing the pillows under me, stroking my dick where it’s pressed against my leg.
Don’t come. Don’t fucking come.
I think about anything I can to distract me. Work. The upcoming case. The one Raven’s helping with. Her soft, gentle hands. What they’d feel like tracing down my back for real, and not just in a shower fantasy.
Fuck.
If I don’t stop, I’ll come.
I freeze, trying to keep my breathing under control.
There’s an awkward silence.
Does Raven know? Can she tell I was about to blow in my fucking pants? I sneak a glance at her, but I can’t see much.
“You know,” Raven drones. “In all my pillow-humping days… I’ve seen better.”
The tension breaks.
“Your hips are stiff as fuck. Let me guess, you also can’t dance?”
“Hey,” I stifle an outraged laugh. “I can line dance.”
“That’s what I thought.” Raven sounds looser than she did before. Less stressed. And I feel a familiar rush of relief. It’s odd feeling it right now. It feels like… like I felt after I could help my animals feel better. It was what I always fought for with Mom, but never fully got.
Which makes me remember that Raven is, in fact, a thousand times more complicated than an animal. And my success rating with humans is not very high.
“You done?” Raven asks.
“Huh?” I glance at her.
“Well, you’re making yourself look like a one-pump chump.” I hear the laughter in her voice this time. She’s actually teasing me.
I’m grabbing the pillow under me to throw at her when her voice sobers up. “Do you think he’ll buy it?”
I pause. I hate to admit that I’m not sure. I’m not sure that Axel would believe anything short of fucking in front of him, and Raven would never do that. I feel unbelievable disappointment for all the wrong reasons.
“We need something that he can see.” Raven’s pacing. That nervous energy is back, and I hate it.
I think it at the same time that she says, “A hickey.”
My dick springs back to life. I would love to give her a hickey.
“Give me a hickey.” Raven’s voice is uncertain.
I want to lunge at her and take the opportunity before she changes her mind. But it’s the hesitation in her voice that makes me pause. It’s not uncertainty, it’s fear. Anytime sex is brought up, Raven is afraid.
Of me? Or of sex?
I know she has a stalker. That would be enough to justify her constant fear. But she seems afraid of sex.
“Do it to me,” I say on impulse. I clear my throat. “Give me the hickey.”
Raven’s still there, by the edge of the bed, but she’s stopped pacing. I can practically hear her thinking through my offer.
I lay on my back on the bed so I’m lower than her. “Give him a reason to believe it.”
She’s still hesitating. I take my hands and put them under my ass so they’re pinned beneath me.
Do it. Take me. I don’t say the words ‘cause I don’t want to scare her off. But my dick thinks they’re fantastic, and I’m hard again. Hard with nothing but my slacks to hide my raging boner.
I hope she doesn’t look. Please don’t fucking look.
“Don’t touch me,” she says, almost whispering it. Almost like she doesn’t realize she’s saying it. There’s such a depth of apathy in her words that it’s like it’s not even Raven saying them. It makes my chest tighten painfully.
Then her fingers are on my chin, and she’s angling my face away and baring my neck to her. My heart starts racing. Raven could do whatever she wanted to me in this instant, and I’d let her. Fuck my life, I’d let her.
Her lips are at my neck, her hot breath brushing along my skin before she latches onto me. She sucks gently at first, and I feel her soft tongue against my skin, and it sends shivers racing down my neck. Her fingers are still on my jawline, holding me down, keeping me laid out so she can mark me.
I’m so hard I feel my dick pulsing against my pants.
Then, Raven sucks harder, and there’s a bite of pain that shocks me and makes my head spin. I suck in a breath and hold it, trying to keep the moan back.
Then, Raven releases me with a pop.
Immediately, I want her back. I want her lips all over me. I want her to mark me as hers all over my fucking body.
“Did you make it dark enough?” I ask, feeling her fingers on my chin as I talk. She jerks her hand back.
“It’s pretty fucking red.”
I bite back the groan that wants to come out. Partially ‘cause I wanted her to say no and do it again, and partially because it’s hot as hell that she marked me, and I’m a chump for thinking so.
I hear Raven back away.
I sit up and grab a pillow to cover my dick.
Raven disappears into the bathroom, and it gives me time to settle my hard-on. I settle it by telling myself that this isn't real. It isn’t real, and if I make it real, I’m just going to repeat history. That sobers me a bit.
When Raven comes back out, she’s back to her brisk self.
“Anti-Axel is a stupid name.”
It takes me a second, then I raise an eyebrow. “Do you have a better one?”
“How about Garret Crusher? Ball Busters? Team Fuck All Men?”
I put a hand to my chest like I’m insulted.
“Oh, get over yourself,” Raven says, but there’s no bite to her tone.
I laugh softly, and I swear she turns to look at me. My face flushes. I shouldn’t have laughed. God, I’m a sucker for fucking punishment. It’s just… easy around her, and I need to fucking stop that.
“Gage?”
“Yeah?” I pretend I didn’t catch on to the tension in her tone again. Both of us are awkward again.
“It’s Celeste.”
“Huh?”
“My name. It’s Celeste. My middle name is Raven.” Her voice is soft, and for a second, I feel like I’m talking to the real Raven. Or Celeste, I guess.
Fuck, I like that name.
Then, her tone changes. “Axel knows, so I figured you should, too.”
Then, she’s gone, stalking out of my room.