Chapter 31
HATCH
“Mmmm.”
“Fuck, Alice.” I groan. “Now you’re just doing it on purpose.”
Her eyes gleam with wicked delight as she curls her tongue around the spoon in my hand and comes away with another long, obscene moan that goes straight to my dick. She swings her legs back and forth on the dock, knowing good and damn well what she’s doing to me—and she’s proud of it.
Meanwhile, I’m gritting my teeth hard enough to hurt while trying to will the bastard to stay down.
Now is so not the fucking time. I’d normally think about something else, something serious or complex to distract myself, but I can’t just ignore her and wonder about how big of an anchor I’d need to drown Castle.
Instead, I’m subjected to this sensual torture.
“But the cherry filling is just so good. I can’t help it,” she lies.
“Yeah. Sure.” I sigh and scoop up another bite of tart.
The only reason I’m feeding her on the dock like this is because Smoke is definitely still in her system, giving her a mad case of squirrel brain. I would’ve thought she’d pass out by now, but instead, she’s harnessed her inner Jack-in-the-Box.
After Duchess and X left, I poured Lucy another cup of tea and grabbed a second pie plate of cherry tart, fully prepared to dig in with her.
Only when I turned around, she was already on the move, teacup in hand, outside and chasing moonbeams across cobblestones.
Thankfully, it’s a balmy March night—Carolina weather giving us whiplash as usual.
Not quite warm, not quite chilly either, even in just my vest. The only two men on my kill list regarding Lucy are either off the island or presently indisposed, so I didn’t mind locking up and following her around as she moseyed along the waterfront toward God knows where.
I have a gun, a knife, and I can fight like the devil’s in me when it comes to her. As long as she’s with me, she’s safe. I’ll follow her wherever she wants to go to make sure she stays that way.
Apparently, tonight, that’s on an abandoned dock in front of Old Church, an old chapel that’s now little more than a towering stone facade and the ghost of what it used to be.
Where stained glass windows once stood, empty black hollows stare out across the bay. The sanctuary itself is long gone, claimed by storms and time, leaving only crumbling foundation walls and broken stretches of brick outlining the room where parishioners once gathered.
A massive live oak spreads over part of the ruins, its branches draped with gray-green Spanish moss that sways gently in the breeze like old lace curtains.
Some strands hang low enough to brush the dock behind us, giving the whole place the feeling of being caught somewhere between a gothic churchyard and a dark fairy tale.
With the way the marshy inlet curves, I can actually see Harry’s bungalow from here.
Lucy’s houseboat, the bakery, and The Rabbit Hole—closed for the night—sit off to my right.
I’ve looked that way more than once since we sat down.
Partly to make sure we aren’t being watched.
Mostly because I really, really wish she’d let me take her home.
I’m dying to put her to bed, tuck her underneath her quilt, and stand guard outside to make sure she sleeps through the night so she wakes up healthy and safe.
But I don’t want to be in her space unless she invites me, and every time I hint at it, she turns me down.
Though, it’s probably best I stay the hell away from her bedroom right now, considering the last time I saw her in it she was moaning my—
Goddammit. There it goes again.
Down, boy.
Lucy accepts another bite and moans.
“For fuck’s sake, Alice.”
“Sorr-yyy.” She giggles and stands to twirl. “But to be fair. It’s not my fault you’re so smitten with me that everything I do turns you on.”
My jaw drops before I can recover, and I decide to give her a taste of her own medicine.
“You’re damn right I’m smitten with you. So smitten I’ll paint your sexy ass red with my handprint if you don’t start being a good girl and sit down.”
She freezes in the middle of some ballet move, eyes wide, jaw dropped.
I snort.
“See? Two can play at that game.”
I stretch to quickly snag her hand, and she squeals when I tug her down.
“Oh my God, Hatter! What’re you doing?” she shrieks, ending in a giggle.
It’s easily the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard, filling me with warmth as she collapses into a seated position a few feet away. When she’s facing me, I shrug and give a dramatic sigh.
“Flirting for shock value happens to be one of my favorite pastimes with you. You’ll lose, Alice.”
Okay, that was apparently the wrong thing to say.
Challenge flashes in her eyes before they lower to a sleepy, hooded, hungry stare. Desire practically rolls off her as she shifts to all fours and crawls to me.
“Alice?” My heartbeat thrums. “What’re you doing?”
When she’s a breath away, I can easily see down the front of the shirt she’s wearing to her bare breasts.
I close my eyes before I do something I’ll regret.
But it just heightens every other sense as she slides a hand up my neck and pulls me closer.
She smells like the cherries I’ve seen her tongue lap up so many times, and my dick is at full attention.
“I’m a stripper, Hatter.” She licks up the shell of my ear, and I shiver. “Do you really think you can out-flirt me? Making men feel good is what I do.”
Fucckkk me.
Her other hand slowly unbuttons my vest before sliding down my bare chest to rest over my hard cock, painfully confined by my slacks.
“Don’t you want that, baby?” she whispers. “Don’t you want me to make you feel good?”
When she squeezes, a moan escapes me. I turn to her, our mouths hovering just shy of touching. I still smell that sugar-cherry scent. But underneath it lingers the faint scent of cotton candy Smoke, and I’m yanked back to some semblance of reality.
Our lips almost touching, my heart beating a million miles a minute, I sink one hand into her hair. She leans in for a kiss as her hand begins to clumsily work my shaft, but instead I wrap my other hand gently around her throat just beneath her jaw and drag my lips along her cheek toward her ear.
“You’re right, Alice. I want to fuck you. Is that what you want to hear?”
She moans and shivers against me. I tighten my grip on the sides of her throat, and she gasps.
“Do you want to hear how I want to lay you out on this dock? Strip you down until you’re only wearing my shirt?
” I release her neck to tug lightly at the collar of my shirt hanging from her shoulders, drawing her closer until she’s nearly in my lap.
“How I want to sink my cock inside you and make you scream my name across this bay until any other man you’ve made ‘feel good’ is a distant fucking memory?
How hard it is sitting here pretending I’m not losing my goddamn mind every time you lick a cherry off that spoon?
Because fuck, Alice. I want to do that so fucking bad. ”
Another soft sound leaves her, and despite myself, my cock jerks in her hand.
I pull back just enough to take in her closed eyes, the way she’s leaning into me, everything about her ready to do every single thing we both want.
I whisper against her parted lips so low I feel her tense against me to strain to hear.
“Well, jokes on you, baby, because I ain’t doing any of that.”
Her eyes snap open. “What?”
Grinning, I tap the tip of her nose with the spoon. “You heard me. Now sit that sexy ass down and eat this sugar bomb so you can pass out like you’re supposed to.”
I take advantage of the shock leaving her mouth gaping wide open and promptly shove another spoonful of tart inside.
“Hatter!” she squeals, laughing and garbling her words around the cherry filling. “What the hell?”
I shrug and wave the spoon. “It’s this or I throw you over my shoulder and tuck you in with a good book like the gentleman I’m trying to be.”
She groans dramatically. “Ugh. Why?”
My jaw tics at the reality I’m so grateful she can forget, and my eyes soften as I slightly shake my head.
“You know why, bunny.”
She bristles, curling in on herself, and guilt twinges in my chest.
“But I don’t even feel high anymore.” Her voice is so fucking small, I want to go scorched earth on anyone who’s ever made her feel anything less than formidable.
I sigh and tuck a loose strand of hair behind her headband.
“I know, baby. But I don’t want to risk doing something I’m dying to do with you on the chance you’ll wake up from all this and regret it in the morning.”
She trills her lips, thinking, then nods. “Okay.”
A second later she narrows her eyes and flashes me a cheeky grin. “But I’m still gonna try to drive you crazy.”
She steals the spoon from my hand, spears a cherry, and aims it at me.
“Open wiiide.”
Annnd just like that, squirrel brain activated.
“Fair enough.” I chuckle, then open my mouth—
Only for the spoon-plane to crash-land directly into my cheek in a wet splat.
She immediately doubles over laughing and drops the spoon into the half-eaten pie plate.
“Oopsie. Sorry about that. Here.”
She whips one leg over me to swing herself on top of my lap before I can stop her, and I automatically wrap an arm around her waist so she doesn’t topple straight into the goddamn water.
I’m so focused on keeping her upright that I completely freeze when she cups my face and licks the cherry filling from my cheek.
Then she moans.
Again.
The girl I can’t have is straddling me on a dock beneath the stars, wearing nothing but my shirt and a thong, and she just fucking licked me.
Yeah. My dick has no choice but to rise for this occasion.
She comes away, smiling knowingly and wipes the damp spot with her thumb.
“Mmm. There. All better.”
This feels so natural, yet so forbidden, and fuck it, I can’t help going along with the only thing that’s ever felt this right.
The peace to my fury.
I swallow at the thought and give up on fighting whatever this thing is between us, at least for tonight, wrapping both arms around her waist and pulling her closer.