Chapter 24 #2
My breath catches. The space between his fingers and my body hums, charged. Electric. I lean into the gap before I can stop myself. I know what happens when the touch lands. My body is screaming for it to land.
"Don't stop on my account," I say. My voice drops lower than I intend.
"You're provoking me."
"I'm flirting with my boyfriend. There's a difference."
"There's not."
"There really is. Provoking would be if I told you I held his arm on purpose.
That I watched your jaw in the mirror and added two extra seconds because I wanted to see exactly what you'd do.
" I hold his gaze and feel the power of it pulse through me.
The ability to crack the composure of a man who runs fight circuits without flinching.
It's intoxicating. "That would be provoking. "
"And what are you doing?"
"Confessing."
His hand closes the rest of the distance, fingers gripping my hip, pulling me forward until my chest presses against his and his mouth is at my ear. His cock is hard against my stomach. He's been hard. This whole time. The realization hits my bloodstream like a shot.
"You held a client's arm four seconds too long because you wanted a reaction."
"Yes."
"You watched me in the mirror to make sure I saw."
"Yes."
"That's bratty, Ruby."
"I learned from the best. You taught me what the word means."
His grip tightens. "There are consequences for bratty behavior."
"You keep saying that. I'm still waiting to see what—"
He spins me around, one hand on my hip, the other on the back of my neck, and walks me backward through the supply closet door.
His boot kicks it shut. The latch catches.
There are shelves on three sides. The space is barely big enough for two people, and it's dark except for the light bleeding under the door.
Ink, antiseptic, and sandalwood smell sharp in the closed air.
"Nash, we're at work—"
"Frankie left ten minutes ago. The shop is empty." His fingers tighten in my hair, tilting my head back until my throat is exposed. "You've been pushing me all afternoon. Time to find out what happens when you push past the line."
He presses me against the shelf, his body flush against mine, and bottles rattle behind my shoulders.
His thigh slides between my legs, pressing up hard.
The pressure against my pussy through my jeans pulls a sound out of me that bounces off every wall in this tiny room.
I can feel how swollen I am, how wet. The seam of my jeans grinds against my clit with every shift of his thigh.
"Hands on the shelf," he says. "Don't move them."
I grip the shelf behind me. The wood bites into my palms.
He holds my gaze while his free hand moves down my body. Over my breast, his thumb dragging across my nipple through my shirt until I arch into his touch. Down my ribs. Across my stomach, the muscles jump under his fingers. He reaches the waistband of my jeans and stops.
"Please," I whisper.
"Please what?"
"Touch me. Nash, please."
He unbuttons my jeans with one hand, pulls the zipper down, then slides his hand inside my underwear. His fingers find me soaked, my pussy drenched, my clit swollen and throbbing. The groan he makes against my ear vibrates through my chest, my stomach, and settles between my legs.
"Fuck, Ruby." His voice is rough, the composure cracking at the edges. "You're this wet from holding his arm?"
"From watching you watch me hold his arm. There's a—" His finger slides through my folds, parting me, and the rest of the sentence dies. "Oh god."
He circles my clit with two fingers firmly, spreading the wetness, pressing against the swollen bud until my hips buck against his hand.
His other hand stays at the back of my neck, holding me in place, his mouth on the side of my throat.
His teeth graze my pulse point, and I feel the scrape all the way down my spine.
"You wanted a reaction," he says against my neck, his lips brushing my skin between words.
"Here's the reaction." His fingers speed up, pressing harder, finding the rhythm that makes my knees buckle.
"I'm going to get you close. Then I'm going to stop.
You're going to walk back to your station, then work your next client with your pussy throbbing and your panties soaked, because that's what happens when you provoke me during business hours. "
"Nash, you can't—"
"I can." He slides two fingers inside me, curling forward, his thumb taking over on my clit, and my walls clench around him immediately, pulling him deeper. My hips grind into his hand in desperate rolls I can't control, my knuckles white on the shelf, bottles clinking behind me.
"Oh fuck, Nash, right there. Don't stop. Right—"
His fingers curl harder inside me, pressing against the spot that makes my back arch off the shelf, his thumb circling my clit faster, tighter.
The orgasm builds like a wave cresting. My thighs shake, my pussy is clenching in rhythmic pulses around his fingers.
My mouth is open, and my eyes are squeezed shut. I'm right there, right at the edge—
He pulls his hand out of my jeans.
The scream that comes out of me bounces off every surface in the closet.
My body contracts around nothing, my pussy clenching on empty, and I grip the shelf so hard a bottle of cyan topples off and shatters on the floor.
My legs nearly give out. His thigh between mine is the only thing holding me up.
"NASH."
"Rule three." He brings his fingers to his mouth, wet, glistening, and licks them clean while I watch, my chest heaving, my body vibrating against the shelf. "You taste like a woman who's going to behave for the rest of the afternoon."
"I am going to MURDER you. I am going to murder you slowly and creatively and with TOOLS—"
He zips my jeans. Buttons them. Steps back, withdrawing his thigh, and the loss of pressure makes me whimper. His jaw is set, his breathing even, his face composed while I'm shaking against a shelf with ink pooling around my boots and my fingernails carved into the wood.
"Your three o'clock is in thirty minutes," he says.
"I hate you. I hate you with my entire body, which is currently on FIRE—"
"You're going to take a breath, fix your hair, walk back to your station, and do your job." He opens the closet door and light floods in. "And tonight, I'm taking you to Vesper."
Vesper. Tonight. He promised last night in the parking lot.
"You're taking me to Vesper," I repeat. "Tonight. After what you just did. You're going to edge me in a supply closet, send me back to work, then take me to a sex club?"
"That's the plan."
"That's DIABOLICAL, Nash. That's a level of psychological warfare that should be studied. I'm going to spend the next four hours tattooing people while thinking about what you're going to do to me at Vesper. You know that, and that's the POINT."
His mouth twitches. "Get back to work, Ruby."
He walks back to the door. Takes his position. Arms at his sides. Eyes on the street.
I stand in the closet with ink on my boots, my body vibrating, my pussy throbbing, my jeans buttoned over the mess he made of me.
My underwear is ruined. My next client is in thirty minutes, and I have to tattoo a straight line while the man who just edged me against a shelf of ink bottles stands ten feet away watching traffic.
Knowing tonight he's taking me to Vesper, knowing every second between now and then is part of the punishment.
I step over the broken bottle, grab a rag, mop up the cyan, and toss the glass. Fix my hair in the mirror by the door and walk back to my station on legs that aren't entirely reliable.
In the mirror, his mouth twitches again.
"I saw that," I say.
He doesn't answer.
I pick up my machine. My hands are steady. My pulse is absolutely not.
Four hours until Vesper. Four hours of straight lines, steady hands, and pretending my clit isn't throbbing in time with the tattoo machine.
I've never wanted to close a shop faster in my life.