Chapter 31
chapter
thirty-one
CALDER
Shay was asleep. In my bed. Fuck. On the drive up the mountain, she’d passed out in the car. It was now past ten in the morning, the sun was streaming icy through my windows, Shay still slept, and there was a man bound and tied in my trunk.
I hadn’t planned on shoving him into my car.
Again, this is not how things usually went.
I didn’t usually keep my marks tied up in my trunk while I cooked my date breakfast. Usually I had them sign, bloodied them a little, and was on my way.
It was just that I saw Shay was at the club. And then I had to check on her. And then he was being a real fucking pain, refusing to sign the papers, and I didn’t have time to terrorize him because, what was Shay doing at the club?
And then she was fucking drunk, stumbling, unaware of how fucking cute she was when drunk, and the lechers who noticed. Of the ones who kicked off the wall, ready to play white knight in an attempt to take a drunk girl home.
So now, Joseph Singley sat tied up in my car. It had been only a few hours…I was sure he was fine.
I wondered if Shay had heard him last night—
“It smells amazing in here,” Shay said from behind me. Her voice was soft and husky with sleep.
She came to my side. Facing the opposite way, leaning against the counter. Her hair was sleep-messed. Her makeup smudged under her eyes. Her thighs visible in the shirt I’d given her.
“What is that?” she asked.
“A macaron soufflé,” I said.
As well as a smorgasbord of breakfast pastries. Blueberry scones, the double chocolate muffins, egg-and-cheese croissants. I hadn’t slept—couldn’t sleep, with her here.
Her voice was low, breathy. “I can’t believe you remembered.”
My gaze snapped to hers. “I remember everything.”
Her eyes were a gorgeous, deep brown. Like smoky quartz, catching the light at certain angles to reveal glittering honey.
She swallowed and my eyes dropped to that. The hollow of her throat. I hadn’t tasted her there yet.
“Did you change me?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered, voice tight, gaze still locked on her throat. Faint freckles painted the hollow above her collarbone, like lace.
Tension coiled and slithered up my spine, knotting the muscles between my shoulder blades.
I worked for the Mafia, spent my time hunting down predators, and yet I’d never felt nervous like I did now, with Shay in my home.
“You left my underwear on.” She sounded disappointed. I shot her a glance.
Somnophilia.
I shook my head.
She was fucking trouble.
“Am I your hostage?” Shay asked, rubbing her sleep-messed hair. She placed her hands behind her against the granite, watching as I pulled breakfast out of the oven. She looked so cute.
So…comfortable.
She sidled up a fraction of an inch closer. Her pelvis in line with my right thigh. As much as I wanted to rip my shirt off her body and drag her to me, there was still a big fucking elephant in the room.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
She took a moment to respond, drawing circles on the countertop.
“Since the date you took me on,” she said. “Well, the one Calder took me on. I saw your birthmark.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “So when you posted, you’d been on a bad date?”
“It wasn’t bad,” she admitted.
“The dirty photos you were taking?”
She bit her lip. “I knew you could see them.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to stifle a smile. Fuck. I liked that. Everything I uncovered about Shay made me fall that much harder. She contained so many intoxicating contradictions.
“You’ve been fucking with me,” I said blankly.
“You started it!” She shoved me slightly, then added, “Are you mad?”
“Mad?” I laughed, incredulous. “You should be calling the police.”
“Why are you stalking me?” she asked, not sounding upset, rather curious.
“A therapist would probably say it’s a way to control the uncontrollable,” I said wryly.
Shay fell silent. I looked over to find her chewing her lip, brow furrowed.
“Shay?” I probed.
“I get it, is all,” she said, voice soft.
Our gazes locked, and it was as if our heartstrings were connected, plucked like a guitar, vibrating in the space between us.
“So you don’t do this with others?” she asked.
I shook my head. I didn’t fully understand why I’d done it with Shay. All I knew was I had to know what she was up to, who she was with, the silly shit she posted years ago.
Instead of saying all that, I wrapped my hands behind her neck, thumbs pressing against her jaw, tilting her head up. “You reveal a lot when you think no one is looking, Shay.”
Her swallow bobbed beneath my thumbs, and I stepped back. “But it’s wrong, and I’m sorry to have put you in this position.”
“It’s okay, really,” she said as I gathered her breakfast onto a plate: two double chocolate muffins, one blueberry scone, and an egg-and-cheese croissant. “I knew you were doing it. It’s like…consensual stalking.”
I laughed. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“If I’d told you to stop, you would have.” She didn’t phrase it as a question. The certainty in her words, coupled with her open, trusting gaze, made my heart wrench.
“You shouldn’t have to ask someone not to stalk you.” I picked up the plate and gently pushed her toward the table. “Sit.”
She obeyed, falling to a seat. I placed the plate in front of her, and her eyes grew.
“I can’t believe you baked all of this.” She blinked, looking from me to the food and back again.
I shrugged one shoulder.
She laughed. “This looks amazing.”
I stepped back, but her hands came to the waistband of my sweats, keeping me still. “When can I leave?”
“When I let you.”
“What if I leave anyway?”
“I’ll drag you back and make you wish you’d listened.”
She swallowed, licking her lips. “Promise?”
Her hands slid inside my waistband, reaching around my length and pulling my cock out, inches from her lips.
Fuck.
“Wow,” she gasped. “This…this is not going to fit inside of me.”
I laughed. “You say the nicest things.” Unable to stop myself, I snaked my grip into her hair, knotting it and pulling her lips away from my cock.
“I’m not trying to be sexy. Genuinely, how is this going to fit inside me?”
“You don’t need to worry about that, little Maniac. Only good girls get my cock. Have you been good?”
At the question, her eyes flashed from my cock, up to me, and then back.
“Have you?” I tested my grip in her hair, and her eyes fell into the back of her head.
“Yes.”
My cock jumped as her breath feathered the skin.
Fuck.
“Oh really?” I teased. “Do good girls tease me all week?”
She chewed her lip, then shook her head slowly.
“Pull up my shirt,” I said. “Show me your perfect pussy.”
With one hand still firmly gripping her hair, the other found my cock, stroking as she pulled up my shirt. She spread her thighs for me, and I swallowed a groan at the lacy black.
“Take your panties off. Show me.”
She obeyed easily, shimmying out of the fabric to expose her cunt.
“Fuck.” I groaned. She was already wet, her pussy lips plump and begging me to taste her. I needed to fucking taste her.
But I wasn’t letting go of her either.
“Slide a finger inside your pussy,” I said, grip on my cock turning bruising. “Get it all wet for me.”
Her eyes locked with mine, and she obeyed, sliding a finger inside her cunt. As she started to groan, I said, “No coming. Put your finger in my mouth and let me taste you.”
She pulled a glistening finger from her cunt but paused just at my lip, something flickering across her eyes. So I grabbed her hand and pressed it between my lips. I swallowed it greedily. Sucking the small digit, swirling my tongue around it.
“Have you read all my notes?” she asked, licking her lips, eyes darting from my cock to her plate.
I knew instantly what she really meant. With one last suck of her finger, I released it with a pop.
“Pick up the muffin,” I said, voice strained with the effort of holding off my orgasm.
She did, licking her lips.
And, shit, even that had me closer to the edge. I jerked my cock in a bruising grip, distantly aware we were crossing a line that we couldn’t come back from. But I couldn’t stop—didn’t want to stop. I was done fighting whatever it was between me and Shay.
“Tell me what you want, Shay,” I ground out.
“I want you to come on this muffin and let me eat it, please—”
I groaned, coming in wet, hot spurts all over the chocolate muffin, her hands, and even a little on her bare thighs. It looked like icing.
When I’d finished, my chest heaved. My legs felt weak.
Fuck.
She watched me, eyes wide and rapt.
“Eat,” I said.
Shay took a big bite, eyes locked on mine. Her legs were still spread, still open. I dragged a free hand across my jaw, massaging as my stare jumped between her bare pussy and her wide eyes, unable to choose one.
On her third bite, I released the grip on her hair and dropped to my knees between her thighs.
Her eyes grew, and she stopped. “What are you doing?”
With two hands, I shoved her knees wider apart. “Having breakfast.”
“Wait— I—” I paused at the tension in her voice, tearing my eyes from her pussy up to her. There was genuine fear in them. “I just… I don’t really like it.”
The genuine fear in her voice told me there was more to the story.
Something to return to.
But for now I nodded, pulling back. “Okay, little Maniac. I won’t taste you.”
Yet.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay—”
“I’m really sorry—”
“Shay.” She stopped at the command in my voice. “Keep eating.”
She obeyed, lifting the muffin back to her lips. I grabbed her discarded panties and pressed them against her pussy.
“What about this?” I asked. “Can I do this? Don’t stop eating,” I added, when she paused to answer. “Nod yes or no.”
She nodded frantically.
I rubbed her cunt with her panties, getting them wet with her. Fingering her lightly through them until a groan slid muffled from her throat.
“I have to leave,” I said.
She stopped eating, disappointment and something too close to hurt slashing her eyes. Before those emotions could settle, I pressed her panties deep inside her pussy. I wanted them fucking drenched.
Her hips arched. Fuck if that wasn’t the hottest thing.
“You can leave while I’m gone,” I said.
“I don’t want to—”
I dragged my tongue up her inner thigh, silencing her. Fuck. I wanted to taste her, wanted to get fucking drunk on her. Wanted to drive my tongue so deep into her cunt that from now on, whenever I ate or drank anything, I’d taste her.
But I stopped at the crease between her thigh and pussy.
Then stood to my feet.
I shoved her soaked panties into my pocket, and her eyes dropped to that.
“If you’re here when I return,” I said, tilting her chin back to meet my eyes. “I’m taking my night with you and spending the next twenty-four hours ruining your body.”