Chapter 16
The ache between my thighs pulls me from sleep. That sweet, deep throb that means Gunner fucked me properly against the window. Three in the morning, and instead of satisfied, I’m already wet again. My body craves him like an addiction I don’t want to cure.
We've been asleep maybe two hours. The apartment drowns in darkness except for moonlight slanting through the south window. Silver light transforms the familiar space into something otherworldly, something that belongs to the night version of us.
He's beside me in his bed, actually asleep for once.
Not the vigilant half-consciousness he's maintained for twenty-eight days, but real sleep.
His arm drapes heavy across my stomach, possessive even unconscious.
I can feel him against my hip through the sheet, soft now but still impressive.
The sheet sits low on his waist. Moonlight reveals what darkness usually hides.
His face first. Without the controlled expression he wears during waking hours, he looks younger.
Not softer. Nothing about this man could be soft.
But unguarded in a way that pulls something tight under my ribs and makes my nipples tighten against nothing.
The scar bisecting his left eyebrow catches silver light, a clean line through dark hair.
His broken nose should make him ugly but somehow doesn't. Dark stubble already shadows his jaw.
I imagine how it would feel between my thighs, rough and perfect.
His chest rises and falls with deep breaths.
The Saint Michael tattoo on his right forearm flexes slightly where his arm crosses my body.
Patron saint of warriors, of justice. The ink looks old, settled into his skin like it belongs there.
Above it, the full sleeve continues with military imagery I can't quite parse in this light.
Skulls and wings and dates that mean something to someone, probably to the dead.
The scars tell their own stories. A long one across his left shoulder, silver-white with age. Another at his ribs, puckered like a bullet wound. Each mark is evidence of a life that's cost him. Wetness gathers between my legs at the thought of this dangerous man choosing gentleness with me.
I'm the only person who's seen him like this. The exclusivity of it settles into my bones and makes me clench with need.
My eyes drift to the desk chair across the room. Empty. The shirt with my painted handprint is gone. Filed away or thrown out, I don't know which. Its absence feels like the end of something and the beginning of something else.
The moonlight through the window calls to something wild in me.
The same part that painted my body in his garden's flowers, that danced for him when I should have been afraid.
My pussy throbs insistently. The decision is made somewhere below thought.
I want to be outside. I want the moon on my skin.
I want him awake with me, inside me under the stars.
I touch his shoulder, gentle but deliberate. "Wake up. I want to see the garden."
His eyes open immediately, finding mine in the darkness. The transition from sleep to alertness takes maybe two seconds. His body doesn't tense, but I feel the shift. From unconscious to operational in a heartbeat. His cock stirs against my hip, already answering me before he's fully awake.
He studies my face, reading something there. "The residential windows overlook the garden. Adrian's on the top floor. Staff rooms overlook it too."
The risk calculation is obvious. Any of them could look out and see us. The thought makes my pussy clench with dangerous arousal. He's weighing operational security against my request.
I don't push. Just wait, feeling my wetness gather, knowing he'll choose me.
He gets out of bed.
The choice lands hard in my chest. I watch him pull on jeans and a black t-shirt, movements efficient in the darkness.
I find one of his shirts in the closet, pull it over my head.
It falls almost to my knees, soft from wear.
My sensitive nipples brush against the fabric.
My underwear from the floor. Nothing else. We're both barefoot.
The service stairs echo under our feet, concrete cold against my skin.
The flickering bulb on the second landing still hasn't been fixed.
Down through the back hallway. Past the dark security office where he usually sits.
Past the kitchen that still smells faintly of tonight's prep.
The building sleeps around us while my body hums with need.
He opens the garden door, and we step outside.
The moonlight hits everything at once. The bougainvillea climbing the stucco wall, deep magenta turned silver-purple in this light.
The jasmine vine on the western wall, its perfume thick in the humid air.
A citrus tree in the corner, leaves dusty but catching light.
The stone bench at the garden's center, old and weathered, the kind that's held countless conversations and silences.
This is the garden my father painted. The one in that watercolor hung above Gunner's bed.
I'm about to fuck in the intersection of my father's art and Gunner's family territory. The thought makes my pussy throb with urgent need.
I cross to where he stands near the door. My hands find his face, pulling him down to kiss me. His lips are warm, responsive. The kiss shifts quickly from greeting to intent. His tongue claims my mouth. I moan softly against him.
My hands go to the hem of his shirt, lifting it over his head.
Moonlight transforms his body into something classical.
Marble and shadow. Each scar darker in this light.
Each line of muscle more defined. I can see his cock straining against his jeans now.
The outline makes my mouth water. I work his jeans open, slide them down.
He springs free, already thick and hard.
The head glistening with precum in the moonlight. He steps out of the jeans.
He's naked in the garden. I can finally see all of him in this silver light.
His cock juts out proudly, thick and long.
A bead of moisture at the tip that I want to taste.
The bullet wound at his ribs speaks of a moment he should have died but didn't. His knuckles, crosshatched with white lines, tell stories of fights won and lost.
Each one is a thing he survived. My mind flashes briefly to what a hardware store owner's body must be.
Smooth, undamaged, unmarked by anything harder than manual labor.
Gunner's body tells stories of violence survived, of a life that's extracted payment in flesh.
The scars make him real in a way unmarked skin never could.
His hands find my shirt. His shirt. And lift it over my head.
My nipples immediately harden in the night air, tight and aching.
My underwear follows. He groans softly at the sight of how wet they are.
We stand naked in moonlight, completely visible to anyone who might look down from those windows. His cock twitches at the sight of me.
I've spent a lifetime covering myself in Pristine. Wrap skirts and modest necklines. The costume of a woman who doesn't want to be noticed for the wrong reasons. Tonight I'm naked and dripping wet in a garden where his entire found family could witness me.
I kiss him again, deeper this time. Feel his cock pulse against my stomach, leaving a wet trail on my skin.
I walk him backward until his back hits the stucco wall.
The bougainvillea cascades above his head.
My mouth moves from his lips to his chest, kissing each scar like a benediction.
The shoulder first. My tongue traces the ragged edge while my hand wraps around his cock, feeling it jump at my touch.
Then the bullet wound at his ribs, perfectly round.
I sink lower, kissing down his abs. They contract under my mouth.
My hand strokes his cock. The weight of it. The heat. The way it pulses with each heartbeat. I want to take him in my mouth. Want to taste the salt of him. But he catches my wrist before I can drop to my knees. The discipline that won't let him finish before me, even now.
He turns us, pressing my back against the rough stucco. The texture scratches my skin, grounding me. I know I'll have marks tomorrow. Then he's dropping to his knees in front of me.
"Fuck," I gasp as his mouth finds me already soaked.
His tongue works deliberately, focused, devastating. He licks from my entrance to my clit in long strokes that make my knees weak. Then focuses on that sensitive bundle with perfect pressure. His hands grip my hips. Hold me against the wall as my knees threaten to buckle.
"Your pussy tastes so fucking good," he growls against me. The vibration makes me cry out.
I look down at his face between my thighs.
Moonlight catches his cheekbones, his eyes closed in concentration.
Behind him, the garden spreads out empty and silver.
Above us, the residential windows. Adrian's apartment.
The staff rooms. Any of them could look out and see me splayed against this wall with Gunner on his knees.
Could witness exactly what he's doing to me.
The thought doesn't make me want to hide. In Pristine, I was the appropriate version of myself. Invisible, modest, never displaying hunger. That woman would be horrified by being this exposed.
But I'm choosing visibility now. Choosing to be seen like this. Pussy dripping, completely naked and wanting. The risk of being seen doesn't diminish my arousal. It amplifies it.