13. Dante #2
"I think you bought my tea because you wanted something of mine in your kitchen.
You said goodnight using my first name because you wanted to hear how it sounded in your mouth.
And you're standing three feet from me right now with your jaw locked because you want to touch me again and you're furious that you want it. "
The ache in my teeth spreads.
She sees it. Of course she sees it. She reads me the way she reads a press room, finds the tell, follows the pressure, and keeps pulling.
"Stop talking," I say.
"Make me."
"Maya."
"Make. Me."
"You are the most infuriating person I have ever met in my life."
"I know. And you still bought my tea."
"I bought tea."
"You bought my tea. My brand. My specific—"
I close the distance. One hand on the counter behind her.
She tips her chin up, eyes locked on mine, still talking.
"—tea, in your kitchen, on the back of a shelf, because you wanted—"
I put my hand on her jaw.
She stops mid-sentence. Her breath hitches. Her hand comes up and wraps around my wrist. She could push me away. Her fingers tighten instead, pressing my palm harder against her skin.
"I hate you," she says, low and rough. "I hate what you called me. I hate that you bought my tea. I hate that you texted me to lock my door after you told me to leave. And I'm going to keep hating you after this."
"I know."
I kiss her because if she says one more word, I am going to lose the last fucking inch of control I have left.
Her mouth opens against mine. Her teeth catch my lower lip hard enough that copper floods my tongue, and my hand tightens on her jaw before I can decide whether I am holding her still or holding myself together.
Her teeth. My hand. Her breath dragging hard through her nose. Kissing Maya Maddox feels like arguing with our mouths.
I press her back against the counter, both hands on her hips, and lift her onto the edge. Her legs wrap around me, hauling me into the space between her thighs. Her body draws me closer while her mouth keeps threatening war, and my fingers dig harder into her hips.
Her hands are in my hair, tugging. I slide one hand up her back to the base of her neck and hold her there, her head tilted back, throat exposed.
I drag my teeth along the tendon in her neck, slow enough to make her shake, and taste salt against my tongue when the sound she makes vibrates through her chest into mine.
"This changes nothing," she says against my ear. "This is not forgiveness."
"I'm not asking for it."
"I still have the file."
"I know you have the file."
"I could still use it."
"You could shut up and kiss me."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? Me. Quiet. Compliant."
"I'd settle for five seconds where you're not dismantling me."
"Dismantling you." She leans away far enough to look at my face. "Is that what I'm doing?"
"You know exactly what you're doing."
"Say it."
"No."
"Say what I'm doing to you, Dante."
I bite the hinge of her jaw. Hard.
She gasps. Her hips jerk against mine.
"That's not an answer," she says, breathless.
"It's the only one you're getting."
Her hands come to my chest. She shoves hard, and I stagger back.
She is off the counter before I can recover, closing the distance, grabbing the front of my jacket, and dragging me back to her mouth until my spine hits the wall.
Her body presses along the length of mine, and I can feel every breath she takes against my ribs, every shift of her hips against mine.
I grip her waist and spin us until her back is against the wall and my weight pins her there. She arches into me, hips rolling forward, and the friction through denim sends heat so sharp my vision narrows.
"You talk too much," I say against her skin.
"You've been telling me to shut up for six years. Hasn't worked yet."
I bite the spot where her neck meets her shoulder. She arches into it, fingers digging into my back.
"Still talking," she whispers.
"Still trying."
She strips my jacket off my shoulders and yanks the shirt underneath over my head. It catches on my wrist and she rips it free. Her hands land on my bare chest.
Then she stops.
Her eyes move across the ink. The sleeve on my left arm. The script across my ribs. She has watched me from sixty feet up for four years. In warmup gear, in team polos, in the black uniform I wear like another layer of skin. She has never seen what's underneath.
Every place her eyes land, my skin pulls tight. Her eyes on me fully clothed were bad enough. With the shirt off, my ribs lock and I can't draw a full breath. Her fingers trace the line of Italian along my ribs, light, careful, and my muscles clench under her touch so hard my breath catches.
"What does it say?"
"Later."
Her sweatshirt comes off. Tank top underneath, thin, braless.
The tank comes over her head and her hair falls across her bare shoulders.
The kitchen light catches her skin: the dip of her collarbone, the curve of her breasts, her nipples hardening in the cool air, her pulse hammering in the hollow of her throat.
I lower my mouth to her collarbone and taste salt. She tips her head back against the wall, nails digging into my shoulders hard enough to leave crescent moons. I work my way down, mouth open against her sternum, then close over her nipple, tongue circling the peak before my teeth catch.
She hisses, fists a hand in my hair, and yanks me closer.
I do it again, harder. The moan that comes out of her vibrates through her ribcage against my lips. I switch sides. Same teeth. Same pressure. Her back arches off the wall, her hips grinding against mine.
Her hands go to my belt. She unbuckles it, clears the loops, and drops it. Her palm drags along the full length of me through my pants. My hips buck against her hand, and I press my forehead into the wall beside her head, breathing hard.
Slow and deliberate, her fingers trace the shape through denim until her hand stops.
Her palm presses harder.
The first barbell is there through the fabric. The ridge of metal where she didn't expect it. Her thumb slides up and finds the next one.
"What—"
"Later."
I undo her jeans. She shimmies them down, and I hook my fingers in the waistband, taking them the rest of the way. She kicks them off. Black cotton underwear, damp when I press my hand between her legs.
She sucks in a breath, hips tilting forward into my palm. I press harder, two fingers circling her clit through the fabric in slow, tight passes. Her thighs start shaking. I push the cotton aside, slide my fingers through the heat of her, slick and swollen, then push two fingers inside her.
The sound she makes is guttural, broken open. Her hand slams against the wall.
My fingers curl forward inside her, searching.
When I find the spot, her legs buckle. I catch her with my other hand on her hip, holding her upright while I fuck her with my fingers.
Slow. Deep. My thumb on her clit. Her breathing disintegrates, and her nails tear at my shoulder.
I add a third finger. She clenches around me so hard my hand aches.
She's close. The fluttering. The trembling in her thighs. The helpless, furious way she grips my shoulder like she would drag me down with her if she had to.
I take my hand away.
Her eyes snap to mine. "What the fuck—"
"Not yet."
I bring my fingers to my mouth. Her taste floods my tongue. Salt and warmth. I hold her gaze while I lick them clean.
"Not standing up."
She shoves me. Both hands on my chest. I stumble back through the kitchen into the living room, hit the rug, and she follows, driving my shoulders flat. She hooks her thumbs in her underwear, pulls them down, and steps out.
Bare. Standing over me.
"Take them off."
I strip.
She's looking at me, her eyes traveling down, and then she stops. The blood drains from her face and rushes back. Her lips part. Her hand drifts to her mouth.
For half a second, Maya Maddox loses the room. She stands over me with her lips parted and her fingers at her mouth because of something hidden on my body.
Six silver barbells run along the underside of the shaft. The air hits the metal, and I feel every one. Only the piercer in Milan and Cole have seen them. No one else in four years.
"Jacob's ladder," she says.
The corner of my mouth almost moves.
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Since eighteen."
She kneels beside me. Her fingers close around me, light, exploratory. Her thumb traces the first barbell at the base, then moves up, finding each one. The metal is warm from my skin. She presses each barbell gently, testing.
My cock twitches hard in her hand, and she grips me tighter.
"Cole knows about these," she says.
The certainty in her voice stops my breathing. She didn't ask. She stated it.
Cole knows about these.
She says it like she understands what Cole's hands have done to the body she's holding. Like a fact she filed years ago and never needed to verify.
"Four years."
My voice comes out stripped. She hears it. Her grip tightens, and something behind her eyes stills.
Four years of Cole's hands on these barbells in the dark. Four years of a secret that existed beneath everything she could see from the press box. Everything the distance hid.
She strokes me root to tip, adjusting to the barbells, the ridges catching against her fingers with every pass. She twists her wrist at the top, thumb circling the head, pressing the highest barbell against the frenulum. My hands find her thighs and dig in hard enough to bruise.
"Six," she says, finding the last one just below the head.
She presses it, and my hips jerk off the floor.
She rises and climbs over me, knees on either side of my chest. Her eyes are bright and furious. Her mouth is soft from mine. My chest aches under the weight of her looking at me like that.
"You've spent six years calling me names," she says. "I'm going to use your mouth and you're going to let me."
She settles over my face.
Heat. Weight. The scent of her flooding my lungs.