V #4
I swallowed as I grabbed his firm globes of muscle in both hands. Gunner’s breath was hot and heavy against the side of my neck. He began to kiss and bite and suck the skin just below where my collar usually rested. My breath caught, voice cracked, and I thrust my hips up.
The sound Gunner made, I thought I’d hurt him. But he reared back and stroked his prick hard and fast. “Again.”
“Are you—”
“ Gillian ,” he demanded, and his voice had an edge of desperation.
“Sorry.” I raised my hips—once, twice, and on the third shove, I felt every muscle in my body go rigid, my toes curl, and then I was spending with a force like a thunderstorm raged inside me.
I heard Gunner’s breathing hitch, then a warm jet landed on my stomach.
I opened my eyes—when had I closed them? —and stared at his face.
His forehead was damp with sweat, strands of raven-black hair clung to it. Gunner’s lips were parted as he breathed heavily. He leaned over me once more, kissing my mouth, my cheek, my jaw, my ear. “How was it?” he murmured.
“Incredible.”
Gunner pulled back enough to meet my eyes. The corner of his mouth tugged upward, like an invisible puppeteer was controlling his smile.
“ You’re incredible,” I reiterated.
Gunner eased himself off my lap and stood from the bed. He said, while walking to the door, “Yank on my tie again and I’ll let you brand my backside.”
I sat up to watch him vanish down the hall, and a moment later, heard the door to the water closet open.
I’d experienced a tidal wave of passion so intense that the lower portion of my body was borderline numb, but what Gunner had just said—confirmation that he liked the distribution of power between us, and that he was clearly relieved in knowing he wouldn’t have to lead every time—it made my prick twitch.
Doing that with him was… well, incredible had been a hell of an understatement.
I drew my knees up to rest my elbows on them. I sat there, ignoring the tackiness on my stomach and dampness of the mattress, while staring out the window to my right. Perhaps New Year’s Eve had turned around, if only a bit.
“Everything all right?”
I startled at Gunner’s silent return. “Yes. Fine.”
He held out a washcloth.
“Thank you.” I wiped my stomach and prick clean. Gunner lay down beside me, naked as the day he’d been born and none too modest either. I looked at him, watched his jaw work, and picked up the sweet and herbal notes of his licorice gum a second later.
“Virginia Brights,” he stated, crossing his arms behind his head.
“Pardon?”
Gunner tilted his head toward me. “I used to smoke.”
I raised both eyebrows. “Cigarettes?”
“Hm-hm.” Gunner held one hand up, motioning with his thumb and index finger. “I liked the trading cards. Parasol Drill was my favorite collection.” He glanced at me a second time and clarified with “Women holding parasols.”
“Oh.”
“Black Jack is the lesser of vices,” Gunner concluded before he reached and stroked my bare thigh. “Although I still have the desire to smoke after sex, even now.”
I fiddled with the wet cloth but didn’t break eye contact. “It’s always listed on your wanted posters—known to have a fondness for Black Jack.”
“It is,” he agreed, his voice dropping low. It occurred to me then that perhaps that former habit was the source of Gunner’s huskiness when he spoke.
“I’d always wondered why.”
“Now you know.” Gunner shifted onto his side, propped his head up with one hand, and pulled me down to kiss chastely. “My apologies. It’s nothing of interest.”
“I think it is.”
He arched one brow.
“If you’ve not noticed, you’re a bit of an enigma to people.”
“Am I?”
“I feel rather like a corvid around you—collecting details like they’re shiny pebbles or pretty buttons.”
“And what have you hoarded so far?”
“You’re wicked.”
Gunner smiled suddenly, and it was always a bit of a shock to see the change on his face—the impassive marble to something like a work of art in the blink of an eye.
“Charming,” I continued. “Kind. Brave. Can discern Crown perfumes by a passing scent, once had a fondness for trading cards—”
“The parasol women were very beautiful,” he insisted.
“You haven’t heard my favorite detail learned.”
“What’s that?”
“Constantine.”
Gunner reached up and stroked the closely cropped hair on the side of my head. “And what about you, Gillian Hamilton?”
“What about me?”
“Tell me something I haven’t ascertained yet.”
“You’ve already picked up the highlights.”
“No. I know your age, your history with the Bureau, your perfume and hair oil. I know your shoe preferences and how you sound in bed.”
I flushed. “I’m not sure that’s a detail others would fight you for.”
Gunner was still stroking my head. “I know you’re far more powerful than what the Bureau believes.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Gunner lowered his hand back to my thigh.
“But I haven’t figured out why.”
“Why what?”
“Why you keep it a secret.” Gunner was staring at me again in that manner in which he stripped a person down to their bones. “They assign levels to their magic agents, do they not?”
I nodded curtly.
“And what have they given you? Four? Five?”
Before I could speak, the PDD on the bureau across from the bed began to emit a series of tones—Director Loren Moore.