Chapter 14
That was the shift from hell .
Closing time couldn’t come fast enough, and I all but shoved the last few patrons out of the bar. I may have been too aggressive closing and locking the front door… maybe. But the door deserved it. At least, that’s what I told myself when the glass rattled in its frame.
Red flooded my vision, and I thundered back across the floor to begin cleaning. James picked that precise moment to step into my path. I was in no mood to play any games and I wasn’t even sure how he tolerated being around me. I stepped to the side, and he matched it. And again when I tried ducking around the other way.
The asshole I’d tossed out at the start of the night had set the tone. People drank like fishes and by the end of it, I’d put one person in a taxi and broken up two fights. I was no stranger to babysitting drunkards, but that didn’t mean I liked doing it. It probably didn’t help that the extremely stressful conversation with Kian was still playing on a loop in my head. Worse, James had sent Shiloh home early after I’d lost my temper with them again. I owed them one hell of an apology. My lip had started to throb, making me irritable. But Shiloh deserved none of the hostility I threw their way.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” I snapped at James. I snatched a bar rag and wiped down the sticky, disgusting counter. James snatched the towel out of my hand, and I whirled on him, ready for a fight.
Even if that fight was with a vampire.
James stood there, holding the cloth out of reach, daring me to challenge him. “Did I say anything about talking?”
I fought the urge to look away from his intense stare. “I guess not,” I admitted.
“The cleaning can wait.” He tossed the rag aside. “Come with me.”
“James…”
“I wasn’t asking,” he snarled, reaching out to grasp my bicep. He manhandled me to the back of the bar, down the small hallway and straight out the back door. Cold wind whipped through the alley, stinging my bare arms, but I didn’t get much time to react to it. James threw me against the wall, and I grunted from the force. I wasn’t small by any means, but I was no match for his supernatural strength.
“What the hell?” I panted, cut off by his hand around my throat.
“Hush.”
“James, it’s freezing.”
“I said, ‘hush.’” He squeezed, lightly. “You need to cool down. When I let go, you’re to stay completely silent. Understood?”
I didn’t know what had gotten into him, but after the way he’d kicked me out of his office earlier—hard and frustrated—my dick was more than interested. His dominance was fucking hot .
When I nodded and he fell to his knees in front of me… that was even hotter.
His hand released its grip, and I took in a gasping breath. He hadn't been constricting my airway, but it was as if my lungs just knew to obey.
“What are you doing?”
His head snapped up, blood red eyes meeting mine in the dark alley. “Didn’t I tell you to be quiet?”
I snapped my mouth shut, and he reached for my belt.
His voice had gone dark, thick with desire, and he muttered, “I told you: I can’t be trusted when you wear these jeans.” His fingers pushed under my shirt, shoving the fabric out of the way so his teeth could nip at my lower belly.
I shuddered, those red eyes hypnotizing me. For a moment, I almost forgot everything I’d been stressed about. I braced myself against the brick with one hand, the other gripping a fistful of his hair. I held on tight, not wanting to miss a single second of what he was doing.
James’s gaze fixed on my crotch like he hadn’t eaten in days. My belt sprang open with a satisfying clink , and he unbuttoned my pants, easing the pressure on my straining erection. A chilling gust of air blew, pebbling my skin but as James fisted the base of my erection, I grew lightheaded from the rush of blood.
“Please,” I muttered, relieved to feel something other than the anger that had been simmering in my veins.
“Do you even know what you’re begging for ?” he asked, a teasing lilt to his voice. Ignoring that I’d broken the rules, he tugged my jeans down to my knees and knocked my legs apart as far apart as they would go.
“I don’t fucking know. Just do somethi—oh, fuck .”
James lapped at my cockhead, his tongue dipping into the slit to lick up as much precome as he could. My chest burned, desper ate for air. He eased off, but my lungs seized again when he ducked his head to trail a hot path all the way up the underside of my cock. I squeezed my eyes shut—continuing to watch was a dangerous decision. He sucked like a pro, effortlessly taking me to the back of his throat. I nearly lost it at the feeling of his tight, wet throat constricting around me. He pulled off fast, hollowing his cheeks to take me down again.
Despite the frigid temperature, the air grew thick and heavy, making full breaths impossible. His fingers wrapped around my length, squeezing slightly before his tongue found the sensitive bundle of nerves that completely unraveled me. I moaned, barely able to hold off my orgasm. James dropped his hand and took me to the hilt again. Without waiting for permission, I tightened my right hand in his hair and slowly thrusted into his mouth. A firm squeeze to my thigh let me know that he wanted more, and that’s exactly what I gave him.
My hips bucked. I fell into the deep, heady feeling, fucking his mouth with reckless abandon. My left hand dug into the wall behind me, the rough surface biting into my skin—I didn’t care. I wasn’t just chasing an orgasm. The moment was filled with pure need . Both of us craved some sort of release, and neither of us knew how else to get it. James’s slurps mixed with my cries of pleasure to fill the alley with obscene sounds—stoking the fire in my belly.
Each time I sank into that tight suction around my cock, pleasure surged through my veins, displacing the stress. My climax built, tingling the base of my spine. Then, my skin started to crawl. Something in the air shifted, and I somehow knew…
We were being watched.
I was close. And I was not stopping. I held my breath until my orgasm became inevitable, then forced out a slow exhale to last a little longer. I forced my hips to slow, rolling them forward and seeking out the wet heat of James’s mouth.
I pried my eyes open.
“Oh, shit.” The first thing that entered my field of vision was James’s nose buried in my groin, saliva dripping from his mouth in the sloppiest, sexiest way possible. One hand kept a firm grasp on my balls, the other pressed to his own erection.
The sight was too much. Dirty, erotic, and everything I wanted. My hairline was drenched in sweat. My legs quivered, the muscles beneath the skin of my thighs twitching. James moaned, the vibrations around my cock hurtling me closer to the edge.
But movement caught my eye, and I glanced up to the mouth of the alley.
Shiloh stood there, frozen mid-step and watching us intently. I was certain they’d turn and run when our eyes locked together, but I was wrong. They stayed. With one unmistakable expression in their beautiful, camouflage eyes.
Lust. Damn, they looked good flustered. They squirmed in place, unable to tear their attention away. And that was what sent me over the edge.
“ Fuck ,” I growled. James choked as I held him down. My hips rocked forward and hung there while my cock pulsed my release down James’s throat. My entire body went weak. My eyes never left Shiloh’s as I abused James’s mouth. The orgasm seemed to last forever. I finally lost the battle, my eyes falling shut. When they reopened, Shiloh was gone.
Suddenly sensitive, I shivered when James pulled off. He wiped his mouth. “Damn, you really needed that, didn’t you?”
He had to have known Shi saw us. “More than I realized.”
“Think you can clean the bar without breaking anything now?”
“After a recovery period,” I said .
James stood with a smirk, and I tugged my jeans back into place as the cold crept into my skin. James watched me with that cocky grin on his face. The second my lungs stopped burning, I kissed it right off his mouth. I groaned, my own taste flooding my tongue. The muscles in my legs twitched, trying to remember how to function. I brought my hand up to my neck, still feeling the heat of his fingers around my throat. I’d never gotten any pleasure from that kind of restraint before.
Then again, I was never one to hand over control. But with James, it was easy. I didn’t have to think twice about it. Panic spiked in my chest, but I tamped it down. He grunted into my mouth, his fingers holding me in place by the back of my neck. Our tongues danced, fighting for dominance until he nipped at my lip to break the kiss. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I whimpered.
“You okay?” he asked.
My chest still heaved, head spinning from a lack of oxygen. James had to know that Shi had watched us—he had to.
“Just trying to remember how my legs are supposed to work.”
He showed no indication that he knew we’d been caught. He chuckled and kissed my forehead. “We can’t leave here without cleaning. Shiloh doesn’t deserve walking into such a mess tomorrow.”
At the mere mention of their name, my cock twitched. I wondered what would happen the next time we saw each other. I had clearly liked it, but I worried Shi wouldn’t feel the same.
When James turned his back, I smiled. Fuck, I couldn’t wait to see the look on Shi Baby’s face.