31. Thirty-One #2
Harley dropped her cunt to my mouth, and I went at her.
I slid my fingers into her while I devoured the soft slip of her, tasting her, inhaling her each time I came up for a gasp.
She did the same, grinding her wet, soft heat over my face while her fingers picked up where the baton left off, sliding inside me, coaxing out the last nerves I had left.
I tongued her clit until she started to shake, the muscles in her thighs twitching as she rocked above me.
She fucked my mouth for the show, but the way she whimpered told me it was more.
Harley wasn’t trying to win, now. She was just trying to shatter and drag me with her.
We fell into a feral rhythm, the pulse of her cunt on my tongue, her voice low and calling out my name, then the relentless working of her fingers splitting me open until I couldn’t tell if the velvet was screaming, or I was.
Harley clenched down hard on my fingers, the walls of her heat fluttering, throbbing—a textbook come, if textbooks contributed a full chapter just to the art of being ruined by another woman’s mouth. I let her finish, let her ride the aftershocks on my jaw.
But I didn’t stop. I kept at her, working my fingers in and out, slow at first, then rapid, pistoning with each tremor she gave me.
I wanted to break her, or have her break me right back, and as she started to come again, she let out a guttural, “Oh, fuck, Echo—don’t stop.”
And I didn’t, not even when she shivered so hard she almost toppled off my face.
Her taste was pure and salty, embarrassed only by how honest it was. She came again, hips working in ragged staccato, then collapsed forward, head burrowed in the velvet while her fingers moved in and out of me.
“Fuck,” I gasped. “You’re going to make me come again.”
She braced herself, digging her fingers in my thighs to keep them open, and then shoved the baton into my cunt.
With one hand, she thrust it in and out of me, while she shoved two fingers into my ass, working them both at the same time.
Her tongue swirled my clit. My body arched off the velvet, and I screamed.
My cunt spasmed so hard it tried to spit her out, but she held on, lapping the mess from my thighs, tongue greedy and wild, until I pushed her away, too spent to even fight the aftershocks.
Her gaze drifted down. “Your fiancé is a fucking idiot for not locking you up every night.”
I wiped my arm across my mouth, and Harley kissed it, teeth catching the tender skin of my wrist. The room pulsed with a blue afterburn, our sweat streaking the velvet in comet trails, the smell of ozone and ruined bodies saturating the inch of air between us.
I stirred, wrist still threaded through the restraint, and Harley, always the showman, unbuckled it with her teeth and let my hand fall onto her thigh.
We giggled—the small, savage kind of laugh reserved for women who have just committed a new and beautiful crime with each other. Then she collapsed into the crook of my body, sliding sideways so her head tipped against my shoulder, hair a greasy, glitter-soaked curtain tangled with mine.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
The exhaustion had a flavor.
I licked sweat from her clavicle, and she carded her fingers absentmindedly through my hair, settling into the hush.
“You said you’ve only done that with people you want to destroy,” Harley murmured. “Am I lucky, or just doomed?”
A snort. “Both,” I said, and meant it.
She nipped my jaw just enough to pinch. “He’ll find out, you know.
Romanovs always do. Just don’t let him take it out on me unless he invites me to dinner first.” She stretched, cat-like, ribs showing under the mesh as she recovered her top from the floor, then lounged back, watching me with a new, measured pleasure.
“You ever going to leave him?” She flicked a dried clump of mascara off her thumb, not waiting for a real answer.
I thought about it as I sprawled, ruined, across the velvet. About Arrow, about the way his shadow was stitched into the lining of every room I entered. I wanted to say yes, of course, but the true answer braided itself between my ribs and burrowed there.
“If he makes me,” I said, “I’ll break his heart and then let the city finish him for me.”
Harley barked a laugh, but not an unkind one. There’s a specific chemistry you get from staring someone in the eyes while they gut you, and both of us recognized the species.
She leaned in, kissed my cheek, and whispered, “If you ever need to run, call me. I’ll hide you.”
I took it for the bond it was, more useful than a secret, but harder than most of the love I’d ever been offered. “Deal,” I said, “but next time you’re topping, bring tequila.”
“Bring your own damn tequila,” Harley teased, then licked the raw bite on my collarbone and, satisfied, peeled off into the locker room.
It took a minute for my feet to remember they could walk. It took another moment for the rest of me to remember Arrow. My body still humming from the pleasure Harley had given me, I gathered my things and stumbled out of the velvet room, legs unsteady beneath me.
The club was nearly empty now, just a few stragglers and the cleaning crew starting to sweep up the night’s debris.
“Need a ride?” Harley appeared beside me, freshly dressed in street clothes, her makeup washed off, and her hair pulled into a messy bun.
“I should go,” I said, glancing nervously toward the entrance. “I’m sure one of my fiancé’s lackeys told him I was here, and he isn’t the type to knock politely when he’s angry.”
Harley snorted. “I’ve heard the stories. Arrow Romanov doesn’t knock at all—he just appears and breaks everything in his path.” She cupped my cheek, her thumb brushing over my swollen lips. “You sure you want to go back to him tonight?”
I hesitated. The smart thing would be to crash at a hotel—let Arrow stew in his jealousy until morning. But some reckless, self-destructive part of me wanted to face him now, while I still smelled of another woman, while the evidence of my betrayal was fresh on my skin.
“I’m not hiding from him,” I said finally.
Harley’s eyes softened with pity. “You really do have a death wish.” She pressed a folded slip of paper into my palm. “My number. For when you need an escape, or a repeat performance.”
I left the club through the service alley, the back of my knees still jelly and the city’s air slicing clean and mean through my lungs.
Frank loomed by the curb, emerging from a halo of vape smoke and the sputtering, half-lit sign of the adjacent bodega.
He clocked me instantly, pupils splitting every inch of me—saw the bruises, the state of my blouse, the wet shimmer that policed my thighs, and the smile I was too tired to erase.
“Does he know?” I asked him.
Frank’s expression didn’t change as he met my eyes. “Of course he knows.”
I swallowed hard, tasting Harley on my tongue. “How long?”
“Since your little performance in the cage.” Frank opened the car door, his movements careful, almost gentle. “He had someone watching the club tonight.”
Of course he did. Arrow had eyes everywhere. The thought should have angered me, but instead, a sick thrill raced up my spine. I slid into the backseat, my body aching deliciously in all the places Harley had touched.
“Is he furious?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
Frank gave me a look in the rearview mirror that said more than words ever could. “He’s Arrow Romanov.”
That was answer enough.