Chapter 17
Allegra
My skin is too tight, too containing, for the hot fury coursing through my veins. I vibrate with rage. Years of pent-up hurts, old wounds, accusations, threaten to hurl from my mouth with deadly precision.
Right now, Derek is my most suitable and only target. He’s staring at me, grinning, when I want to rip his face off.
My palm burns from where I slapped him. The crack of my hand connecting with his face echoes in the sticky air.
I curl my fingers into a fist, clasping my hand against my chest, as shock rocks through me.
Oh gosh, I hit someone.
I slapped Derek.
Little tendrils of panic begin to coil and loosen in my limbs. My mind races.
His eyes hold a glint of satisfaction I can’t stand.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I repeat, quieter this time.
Derek’s head turns a fraction, his gaze landing on the brick wall at my back. I watch the emotions he usually keeps locked down ripple across his face.
Anger, pride, fascination.
Heat, desire, want.
My other hand curls into a fist. The tipsy buzz I had going on is obliterated. Instead, I feel wild. Hot and needy and daring. Angry and frantic and reckless.
“Why the hell did you come?” I question Derek. “You have Jenn. You have every fucking woman in this damn city.” My hands spring open and I press them against Derek’s chest, shoving him.
He shuffles back half a step, one of his hands grabbing mine, trapping it against his beating heart. His grin widens.
“Can’t I have some fun?” I continue. “Can’t I meet a man who makes me feel things?”
His humor evaporates. That taunting smile flattens into a thin line. A razor’s edge. His nostrils flare.
“What things?” he demands, his voice laced with arsenic.
I laugh but it’s not funny. No, the sound that cuts the air is half bellowing, half delirious. Desperate.
Things that make me forget you! I want to hurl the words at him, but they’re too telling. They give too much away.
Instead, I glare at him, my chest heaving, my fingernails scraping against the thin fabric of his T-shirt. I want to claw at him. Wail against his larger-than-life demeanor that keeps me pinned in place.
Pining and hoping and dreaming.
I work a swallow, my throat dry, my eyes clear. “Whole,” I spit the word.
Watch as it lands. His carefully controlled expression cracks for a heartbeat.
His face crumples, his shoulders sag, and he swears. “Fucking hell, Stellina.” My nickname is a plea on his lips. A curse and a wish and a prayer.
Derek’s neck snaps up. His eyes find mine and pierce me to the core. They’re blacker than midnight, edged in steel. His mouth twists, a snarl. He pushes into me, keeping my fingers trapped in his, like a vise, as he backs us against the brick wall.
My bare shoulders cut into the hard surface, and it scrapes against my back. I straighten my shoulders, narrowing my eyes at Derek as he lines his body up against mine.
“What are you doing?” I ask. But my bravado has slipped. Nerves skate down my arms and zip up my stomach. I tug my hand, but his fingers tighten their hold. “What do you want from me?”
He snorts, his upper lip curling. But his eyes don’t leave mine. He doesn’t even blink.
The air around us is oppressive. Bearing down with a relentless heat that steals the oxygen from my lungs. Beads of perspiration roll down my spine, pool in the small of my back. My hands feel clammy.
Heat gathers between my thighs. Achy and throbbing. A slice of well-meaning fear that morphs into angst when Derek lowers his mouth to the shell of my ear.
He breathes out and his breath skates over my neck. I shiver and feel his arousal, long and thick and painfully hard, grind against my abdomen.
“Everything,” he murmurs one word. He rolls his hips, grinding against me again. Making his desire clear. His intention known. “Every fucking thing, Stellina.”
I suck in a shallow breath, try to clear my thoughts. Gain control over this situation.
Derek turns his face, the tip of his nose tracing a line along my cheek. Then, his mouth is on mine and all rational thoughts disappear.
I hover between detonating and melting for him. My body falls slack, a puppet in his hands. Derek becomes my master, coaxing and demanding and controlling every aspect of this encounter.
His lips are hard against mine, his tongue plundering as it invades my mouth. He kisses me brashly and I buck against him, pressing my chest into his and arching my neck to meet him. Kiss for kiss. Nip for nip. Lick for lick.
He looms over me, dark and dangerous, blotting out the light. Stealing my breath. His hands find mine, lacing our fingers together and bringing our joined hands over my head. My knuckles slam into the bricks and I roll my hips, feeling his length.
“Give it to me then,” I order, my voice harsh.
“Fuck!” he swears, pulling back to glare at me. “You have no fucking clue what you want. What you’re asking me.”
I shake my head. “Don’t patronize me, Derek. You think you’re the first man I’ve been with? The first guy to touch—”
He growls and drops my hand. Backs up a few steps.
My chest heaves as I watch him, wondering what he’ll do next. God, I’m half out of my mind with lust. With a desperate desire that threatens to consume me. Worse, I want it to.
I want him to—what? Take me against a wall in a back alley?
It’s depraved. It’s against everything I’ve been taught my entire life. It’s immoral and wrong and filthy.
But my pussy clenches and throbs. My nipples are hard, poking into the rough material of my bra. Everything feels swollen and heavy and tight.
My mind buzzes, a whirring sound filling my ears that distorts reality. My fingers tremble, responding to my body’s desire. They skate across my denim shorts. Slide over my hip and down my thigh, toward my core. Derek watches in rapt fascination, his breathing heavy, his nostrils flaring.
I hold his gaze, bold and daring and furious.
The pad of my index finger meets the seam of my thigh. My back arches imperceptibly. I’m desperate for touch. For release. I swipe one finger over the seam that runs between my thighs and buck against the gentle contact.
Before I can do it again, Derek’s between my legs. His hand swats mine away and he hikes me up against the wall. One hand under my ass, supporting my weight, the other tight on my ribs.
“Hook your leg around me,” he commands.
I do, pressing my back into the wall.
“You’re pure perfection, Allegra,” he says, using his weight to pin me in place.
One hand makes quick work of the button and zipper on my jean shorts. Then, his tongue is in my mouth, his hand is in my pants, and I’m hovering in the air. Rocked between his skillful touch and a brick wall.
It’s delicious.
I give him my body weight and let my eyes close. Sensations rock through me as Derek kisses me with abandon. Our tongues twist, dueling, for command. But he quickly overpowers mine as his fingers slip through the wet folds of my pussy.
I’m so wet for him, the sound of my arousal explodes in my eardrums. Blots out the buzzing and sings like a chorus, inching me higher with every octave.
“Oh God,” I murmur.
“Fuck, baby.” Derek’s mouth is by my ear again. He drags two fingers against my core. “Dripping for me.”
“Ung,” I make a nonsensical sound, turned on by his words.
Turned on by my reaction to him. Turned on by how wrong this is, out in the public where anyone can see us.
See me writhing, dragging my head back and forth against the hard brick, and mewling for more.
It’s shameless. Forbidden. And so damn delicious.
“This what you want?” His finger teases against my entrance. My hips rock on their own accord and he snickers. “Yeah, my baby needs this, right?”
“Uh-huh.” My baby. Am I his?
He presses one finger into me, so slowly, I cry out.
Then, he adds a second and slides them inside. Withdraws. Back in again.
“Derek,” I pant.
“That’s it. Say my name, Stellina.”
“Derek,” I manage again.
He fucks me with his fingers and the friction is wonderful. A burn gathers in my core, spreading into an exquisite heat. It grows, expands, takes over, as I vibrate in Derek’s arms.
“Tell me what you want, Allegra.” His voice is gruff. His control is slipping and mine is nonexistent.
“Everything,” I breathe out. My head rolls against the wall. I force my eyes open and find his. He watches me with intent, his expression tighter than I’ve ever seen it.
Naked desire pools in his irises and he’s breathing hard, panting in unison with me.
“Everything, Derek,” I repeat his words.
He presses his thumb against my clit, a gentle whisper. Pushes his fingers deep inside my pussy and curls them. Then, his thumb circles my clit once, twice and—
“Oh God. I’m coming,” I tell him, my fingers clenching at his shoulders. I break apart in his arms. A tidal wave of sensation, of messy, complicated, fucked-up feelings and delicious, delightful, desperate warmth rushing through my body.
Derek holds me, watching me with pure fascination, as I shatter. Pieces of me—shards and slivers and sentiments—slam back into place, but they’re rearranged. I’m half disoriented, half enchanted.
“Oh God,” I whisper.
Derek’s hand squeezes my ass as he gently lowers me to my feet.
I sag against the wall, needing its sturdiness to keep me upright as my legs threaten to give out.
My denim shorts are unbuttoned, hanging off one hip, but I don’t bother fixing them. Instead, my fingers splay against the wall at my back and I try to regulate my breathing, to make sense of what just happened.
Derek keeps his eyes trained on me, his lids hooded with desire. I watch him through drugged eyes.
He pops his fingers into his mouth, sucking them clean. He pulls them out quickly, a string of saliva mixed with my arousal stretching from his lips to his fingertips. He smears it against my mouth before slamming his palm against the wall above my head.
Derek dips down and I raise my gaze. He catches my eyes and, keeping them open, drags his mouth over mine.
“I’m the man who makes you feel things,” he reminds me in a low, threatening voice. “No one else.”
My knees shake, my heart rate erratic.
“Now button your jeans. Samson’s on his way and I told your brother I’d get you home.”
“You did,” I retort, surprising us both with my vulgarity. Honesty.
Derek narrows his eyes as he drinks in my face. His gaze tracks my expression, as if committing it to memory. “You’re too big for this, Stellina.”
I shake my head, not wanting to hear these words. Again.
“Push too hard and you’ll burn right the fuck out,” he warns. Then, he palms my hips, squeezing once, before he straightens my shorts and zips them up.
“Let’s go.” He turns, walking a few steps ahead of me.
I watch him go, note the strength in his shoulders, the casual gait of his walk.
But I know I affect him. Derek Reiner can have any woman in Boston, but deep down, he wants me.
Will he take me down dark, winding alleys in London? Against ancient ruins in Rome?
Swiping the back of my hand over my mouth, I laugh.
He wants me.