Chapter 77
Trips
RJ’s texts are pissing me off. I hate these tunnels.
I hated them before we got stuck in them like rats in a run, and I’m not any fonder of them now, even if we’re playing a game that has every nerve in my body lighting up like a fucking trade board.
But finding myself at the end of a very long wrong path with no Clara in sight was a blow to my ego.
Retracing my steps at an even slower jog was another bruise, and then when I add the teasing ‘colder,’ ‘icicle,’ messages after another wrong turn, I might as well be bleeding out in this game.
And it’s my fucking game.
Chasing Clara, fighting her, taking her, it’s so goddamn primal, such a perfect reflection of everything we’ve been to each other, and everything we will be, that it’s like a drumbeat calling to my whole damn soul. And here I am, losing the game because tunnels are freaky and confusing.
So, by the time I jog toward a casual RJ, scrolling on his phone like a damn prince while I’m a sweaty mess, my mask long since pushed down, dangling around my neck, I flip him off before I can second guess myself.
And the hint of a smile twitches at his lips.
A tiny hint that maybe, someday, we might be friends again.
“Took you long enough,” he mutters.
“Not all of us are runners.”
“But most of us have a better sense of direction.”
“Fuck off,” I answer, even though I saw Walker on my way through the tunnels, spinning his keys around his finger and strutting like the lucky bastard he is, off to warm up the car for the short drive home. He can’t have his princess getting cold.
It is brutal out tonight, so I can’t really blame him.
I pause, suddenly worried that I'm not as much a part of this game as I thought I was. “Do you trust me?” I ask Clara's staunchest protector.
“She seems to trust you,” he says.
“But do you?”
He knocks his head against the wall, intense gaze taking me in. “Let's see how tonight goes.”
Good enough. I dip my chin and continue down the hall. And a few steps past RJ, a slightly-dazed Jansen sits sprawled against the wall. I can’t help but laugh as his head rolls toward me like he’s a broken puppet. “That good?”
“Better.”
I pick up my pace as I pass him, knowing she can’t be far ahead now. And the tunnel only goes one way from here on out. I double-checked the map three times, just in case.
I’m not losing again.
Sure enough, I hear the steady clack of her heels on the concrete ahead, and I force myself into a sprint, intent on her curls bouncing in the distance.
She looks back, her eyes flashing in surprise before she picks up the pace as well.
But she’s wearing heels. A handicap I’m glad she has as I gain on her, snaking my arm around her waist while we’re still moving.
She uses my momentum to roll me over her back, leaving me sprawled on the ground as she spins and tries to sprint back in the direction we were coming from.
But I’m used to functioning with the breath knocked out of me, and I grab her ankle, glad we taught her how to fall as she pinwheels toward the ground beside me.
I let go so she can roll, then pounce, yanking my loose necktie from around my neck and quickly tying her wrists together.
She kicks back, and I whip off my belt, locking her ankles together too.
“Caught you,” I say as I force her to her knees.
“Took you long enough,” she says, still squirming despite all her limbs being locked. I tug her arms up behind her until she stops wiggling, the strain keeping her still as anger flares in those dark eyes.
“Careful there, Crash. I’ve got control this time. Don’t push me. I’ll push back.”
She glares at me, and without warning, she spits.
And everything in me lights up. This girl was made for me, the spark in her eyes forcing both of us out of our heads and into the moment.
“Bad move,” I say, lowering my fly and taking my rock-hard dick into my hand and rubbing it along that full bottom lip that has haunted my dreams for more than a year.
“I bite,” she says, a challenge.
I lower her arms with the tail of my tie, letting her settle back on her heels.
Then I squat down in front of her, running my tongue along the column of her neck.
“So do I,” I say before pressing my teeth to the juncture there, all her muscles growing slack, a soft whimper falling from her lips.
When I let go, I meet her hazy eyes. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Use care.”
Standing back up as she licks those lips, the red painted on them faded after an evening of excess, and I’m harder than I thought I could get. “Open,” I command.
And she does, her tongue a warm bed for me to rest on. The first hint of her heat and wet, the first swirl of her tongue has me going to the same hazy space she seems to be in, working me over like I’m dessert.
God, is this fucking good. Better than I’d imagined, which seems impossible, but it’s so fucking true.
She looks up at me through her lashes, and then, with a smirk, she drags her teeth against the underside of my dick, just a little, and oh my God.
It’s too much, but also just right, violence and pleasure meeting.
I pull out, tapping her cheek lightly in reprimand.
“Do that again, and you don’t get to come. ”
She smirks, but doesn’t say anything, and when I feed her my dick again, it’s just as heavenly, but with the added element of risk, keeping me on edge.
And just as I’m ready to come, practically fucking her mouth, she scrapes her teeth against me again, timing it with my orgasm, and the world goes black for a moment.
She swallows me down, not a drop missed, and when I pull out, she licks her lips, but her grin tells me she doesn’t have an ounce of remorse.
So, I drop to my knees in front of her, and kiss her, plunging my fingers into her soaking core, a ragged hole cut into the thousand-dollar dress at some point. Somebody’s earned my gratitude tonight.
Once she’s fully on edge, chasing my fingers every time I pull away, her tongue and mine tangling, her pussy clutching at me like it wants to pull me deep, I bite down on her tongue, yank my fingers free, and holding her shocked, then furious gaze, I let her tongue go.
“I warned you,” I say, licking my fingers clean before I stand, leaving her tied, kneeling on the floor, on edge and full of rage, passing RJ just a dozen feet down the hallway. “All yours.”
He slaps me on the shoulder as he passes, and something in me settles. We can come back from this. And I grin, a little extra something in my step as I head back toward the car.
“You’re an asshole, Trips,” Clara barks from behind me.
And I laugh, knowing that she wouldn’t have me any other way.