Chapter 2
WATERING
The room is dark when my eyes blink open.
Strange. I’m usually too drunk to close the curtains.
I roll onto my back and … something’s cooking.
Bacon? I’m not much of a breakfast person; one of the benefits of drinking too much is being too hungover to eat first thing.
But for some reason, my stomach growls. I stand and sway, blinking at my feet.
Rig’s insistence on Tylenol and coffee last night means my head feels okay for the first time in …
quite a long time. The booze helps … Gah, I’ll take the lack of a hangover as a win.
I move out of my bedroom past the crumpled comforter on the couch to the kitchen. I’ll bet he was uncomfortable on that.
I’m met with an eye-watering view of a naked, broad, muscled back and a rough pair of jeans.
“You’re cooking?”
He peers over his shoulder, eyes sweeping me up and down, then he turns back to the stove as all the muscles in his shoulders bunch up tight. Then he says, “Fuck it,” places the pan on an unlit burner, and swings around, stalking toward me.
“What … what …?”
“I was cooking, and I wasn’t going to take advantage of you, babe, but you’ve turned up in that.” His hand waves down my camisole and checked pajama bottoms. “And let me tell you, it leaves nothing to the imagination.”
Looking down, my nipples are peaked under the thin top. Damn. I start to turn, but he grabs my arm.
“I was cooking, but now I’m fucking,” he says. “You can’t come in here dressed like that and not expect to be fucked.”
Before I can say anything—like last night was a mistake, that I should never have sat at his table, or anything else that springs to mind—he’s in my space with his mouth on mine.
And I forget everything because he tastes of coffee and salt and his lips are hard and demanding.
His large hand slides down over my ass and pulls me into something that feels …
pretty damn good. Fingers dig in, lifting me up, and it’s all I can do to wrap my legs around his giant hips and hang on.
He presses into me right where I want it, and tingles run down into my toes.
If you’d asked me if I wanted sex this morning or even five minutes ago, I would have said, “Hell, no,” but as soon as he does this, I’m like “Yes, please” and “Right now.”
He turns and hitches me onto the countertop, hands grabbing the sides of my cami, which he whips up and off and tosses somewhere behind him.
He stares down at my naked chest for several heartbeats, eyes narrowed and grim.
There’s a cut above his left eye and a bruise on his chin that I didn’t notice in the dim light of the bar last night.
Why’s he all beaten up? I scrabble at the fastener on his jeans, unbuttoning and unzipping him and finding no boxers, just dark curly hair and …
oh my God. My hands wrap around his length, and a noise vibrates in my throat, followed by his answering rumble.
He steps back and pulls a condom out of his pocket and rips it open with his teeth.
My hand slips away as he rolls it on and tugs at my pajama bottoms, so I lift up and then they’re gone, his hand sliding between my legs.
He finds my clit with unerring accuracy, but his touch isn’t rough at all; it’s like perfect pressure, so right, and my eyes roll back in my head as his thumb explores. Fucking perfect. Jesus.
“Oh yeah, baby,” he groans.
He pulls me toward him, and before I can say, “I’m not ready yet,” or “You’re too big,” his cock stretches me as he pushes in, and the sting makes my scalp prickle.
I lift up and away from him, because I can’t take it, I can’t.
I’m not wet enough, he’s huge and … he thrusts roughly forward, and I squeak as water leaks out of the corners of my eyes …
but his fingers come back and he starts doing some rubbing-and-rolling thing.
All the air leaves my body as I tilt forward and open my legs wider. Like an animal, all instinct and need.
“Fuck, yeah,” he says, pushing deeper, and his thumb presses harder.
The combination of being stretched so much and played with so much makes my thighs shake, a deep ache starting somewhere in my pelvis, tightening and tightening, until I don’t know what to do with myself.
I claw at his shoulders, trying to hold on, trying to shift closer, to move my ass forward, and he clamps a hand on my butt dragging me right into him.
“That’s it, that’s it. Baby, that’s it.”
“Oh God, oh God.” That strangled voice can’t be mine. I’m wetter now, and he starts some strange movement, rolling his hips and pulling me forward in a rhythm on the edge of the countertop, thumb still perfect, and my toes curl into the rough denim of his jeans now hanging low on his hips.
The ache that has taken over my entire pelvis grows and expands, running down my legs into my feet and I gasp, tipping my head back.
“Beautiful,” he says.
My head snaps back to find him looking down at my breasts, and he closes his eyes.
“God, baby,” he rumbles. “You close?”
I can’t answer him because I can’t speak. It’s coming for me like a ten-ton truck, and I’m out of my body, the truck looming larger and larger, pinned to the road and unable to move before it hits me.
“Oh … oh … oh …” It slams into me like a huge wave, and I fly apart, jerking into the soft curls on his chest, pressing in, trying to stop myself falling into a million little pieces.
“Yes … yes … yes.”
He pushes in, hard, but I’m loose now, and the fill and the stretch draw the pleasure out like toffee. His hand presses me into him, grinding against me as his big body shakes, his cock pulsing.
“Jesus. Jesus … fuck.”
He smacks a hand into the kitchen cabinet above our heads and the whole wall vibrates, and for a beat I wonder if it’s going to come down on us, because this place is … yeah.
“Goddamn.” His exhale gusts across the top of my head.
I rub my nose against his furry chest. I can’t move. The hand that was rubbing me so well comes up and runs down my back. Once. Twice. And we sit, breathing in the smell of half-cooked bacon as the fridge clicks and hums beside us.
When he steps back and pulls out, cold creeps in. He peels off the condom and ties a knot in it, hitching up his jeans and fastening a few buttons. His hand lifts and slides around my neck, hazel eyes studying me.
“I’m gonna go shower. Finish the bacon, yeah? We’ll eat, and then I’ve got to go and deal with those assholes.”
And he leaves me on the counter, mouth agape, a warm lassitude spreading through my limbs.
If I jump down, I don’t think my legs will hold me.
I suck in a sharp breath and blink at the window opposite that looks out over the projects behind the lot.
The pipes crank, and the sound of water hammers against the thin walls.
Whistling starts up, and singing. “Whoa-oh, sweet child o’ mine.”
A smile creeps across my face. Guns N’ Roses. Goddamn the man.
The bacon is congealing, so I shuffle my butt along the countertop, lean over to turn on a burner, and place the pan back on it.
Bread and eggs are sitting on the side, so I ease myself down and stand and wobble for a couple of seconds, before retrieving my clothes from a heap in front of the cabinets and pulling them back on.
I’m cracking eggs into the oil when he appears again, jeans now fastened around his waist and rubbing his wet hair with a towel. My mouth dries at the thick corded arms and the curls all over his chest. No pretty boys smoothing out their image here.
I gesture at the battered table and the two chairs sitting against the wall. “Have a seat.”
He laughs, shooing me into a chair. “No way, babe, this is my gig.” And I’m only too glad to sit, because I’m still wiped out and shaky.
He flips the eggs, rescues some coffee from the percolator that I didn’t even notice he’d put on, and dumps a full mug in front of me along with sugar and a bottle of milk from the fridge. Where did that come from? Ah, yeah, I didn’t have bacon either.
“You went to the store.”
He grins. “It’s two steps around the building, and the cupboard was bare. Plenty of vodka, though.”
Heat creeps up my neck. He places two extra slices of bread on his plate as he puts the sandwiches together and sets one down in front of me, two on his plate. Half of one disappears in a bite.
“So Guns N’ Roses,” I say, biting into the warm toast and salty meat.
He laughs. “Whatever I heard on the radio yesterday, babe. No rhyme or reason.”
The other part of the sandwich disappears.
“I’ll be back tonight,” he says, as he chews.
I stare at him. He’s a one-night-stand guy, right? Why did he say that? Goddammit, hope is the last thing I need.