Chapter Seventeen
Perish
I planned to stay in the glass room all night.
It was my damn aching back that had me deciding to climb down, grab some medicine and some pillows, then head back up.
I sucked in a deep breath when I reached the bottom of the ladder, meaning to steady myself.
The problem? The whole basement smelled like Gracie’s coconut scent. So strongly that she had to have applied a fresh coat to her body.
That knowledge, of course, gave my mind things to think about.
That bare body of hers, her hands sliding all over it…
My cock twitched, and I debated going back up into the glass room and just suffering.
But I found myself moving forward, advancing toward the steps.
When a little cry had me stopping short, my heart accelerating, my hands curling into fists, ready to pummel anyone who might be hurting Gracie.
But she wasn’t being attacked.
Of course she wasn’t.
The gate was closed, and there were half a dozen guards walking the grounds. No one was getting in.
No.
Gracie was alone and unharmed.
Except for whatever was going on in her dream that was making her cry out and move around in her sleep.
I should have known she wasn’t as ‘fine’ as she kept claiming. It was just her way of never letting anyone else worry about her, take care of her.
But all that shit, it came out when you were asleep and unable to lie to yourself anymore.
I knew I should keep moving, mind my business, go upstairs and let her mind work through the situation.
Did I do that?
Of course not.
“Hey,” I said, leaning down to place a hand on her hip over the blankets. “Gracie, wake up,” I demanded. Then, with a little shake, “Wake up.”
Her eyes shot open, wide and unseeing for a second.
“It’s just me. You were having a nightmare,” I told her as she slow-blinked at me.
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Yeah. I heard you crying in your sleep.”
“No,” she said, slowly folding up until she was sitting off the edge of the mattress, her head angled up to look at me.
It was then I noticed the flush over her cheeks, down her neck.
At some point, she’d changed out of the oversized outfit I’d put on her with the hopes that it might keep me from imagining what was beneath.
Instead, she was in a matching baby blue silk pajama set with shorts and a tank top.
And that damn tank top was not hiding much.
Beneath the thin material, the round swells of her breasts were clearly outlined.
As were the pointed buds of her nipples from the cool basement air.
The sounds from her ‘nightmare’ came back to me.
I’d been quick to assume they were distressed cries.
But that flush on her, that suggested it was a different kind of cry entirely.
“Gracie,” I said as her hands slid up my sides toward my hips. There was a warning in my voice. A warning of what? I wasn’t sure. Maybe that I didn’t have the control to hold back this time like I had in the past.
“I was having a dream,” she admitted, voice still husky with sleep. “But it was a good one,” she said.
Her hands slid inward, fingers brushing across my stomach.
I was rock-fucking hard already.
The heated look in her eyes said she was just as far gone as I felt.
I had to stop her.
But her hand slipped. Her fingers pushed my button through the hole. Then my zipper was sliding down.
My breath felt caught behind my ribcage, tight, suffocating.
Any second now, I would push her away.
But then her hand slipped.
Her palm closed around my cock.
And any chance of moving away disappeared.
A low, rumbling sound moved through the basement. It took an embarrassing amount of time before I realized the sound came from my own chest.
I was too busy listening to the way Gracie gasped, to how her eyes widened as she fisted me and stroked down my length.
My fucking knees felt wobbly.
Then her head ducked.
Her lips parted.
She sucked me in.
A long, deep groan escaped me as her mouth moved down my cock.
My hand slapped down on the back of her neck, fingers curling in as I tried to suck in a deep breath.
She kept sliding down and down and down until she let out a soft choking sound.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
Then I was gathering up her hair, fisting it at the back of her neck so I could watch her as she started to move up and down my length.
Slow at first. Maybe a little shy.
Then faster and faster as my breath got short and quick, as my hips rocked into her mouth, as my hand gripped her shoulder hard.
“Fuck, baby,” I groaned as she drove me closer and closer to the edge.
She moaned around my cock, the sound vibrating around me, making my body tense, every muscle shaking.
Her lips tightened.
Then that was it.
Then the climax was swelling, surging, exploding, flooding her mouth. She just sucked, and swallowed, and sucked some more, making my legs go numb, making my body shake, and my hand slam into the bunk above me or I was sure I would sink to my knees.
Her mouth worked me for just a few more seconds. Then her tongue was tracing over the head before her face shifted, pressing into my stomach as she caught her own breath.
It took a long moment before a single clear thought could penetrate the orgasm haze swirling around my mind.
And it was a vital one.
The line hadn’t just been toed.
I’d stomped all over it now by letting her go down on me.
My hand relaxed on her hair, releasing it, then gently rubbing the back of her neck.
A soft little sigh escaped her at the touch.
And whatever the fuck was left of my control right then snapped.
I reached down, grabbed her, pulled her to her feet, then turned her back against my chest, and slid my hand down the waistband of her shorts and panties.
A sharp whimper escaped her as a shiver racked her body.
“Fuck,” I ground out. “So wet just from sucking my cock.”
Another needy little sound escaped her as my fingers teased up her pussy to find and circle her clit.
Her whole body trembled at the touch as her thighs tightened and her hips rocked, everything about her begging for more.
I slid my thumb to her clit then slipped two fingers inside her.
Her head fell back on a moan as her walls tightened around my fingers as I slid them deeper.
“Perish, please,” she whimpered when my fingers stilled inside her. Her hips rocked, circled, begged for more friction.
My other hand slid up to lightly press over her mouth before my fingers started to fuck her. Fast, deep. Thrusting, circling, turning then stroking.
She was fucking drenched, soaking my hand, making my cock twitch again at the thought of sliding deep inside her.
That… that was the one line I knew I couldn’t cross.
But I could have this moment.
I could give her what she needed from me.
So that was what I did.
Until her pussy was tightening and her cries vibrated against my hand.
Then again.
And again.
And again.
Until she was panting, until I had to release her mouth to hold her against me so she didn’t sink to the floor.
I don’t know how long we stood there like that, me holding her up, keeping her close as she tried to come back from orgasm after orgasm.
And honestly, I had no plans to let her go.
Until I heard voices upstairs, one of them getting alarmingly close to the door.
We both tensed.
Then I heard the hand on the knob.
Gracie must have too, because she flew into the bed, throwing the covers over herself and looking immediately asleep.
I was quick enough to get myself tucked and zipped and move toward the steps before Nave made his way down.
“She asleep?” he asked, voice hushed as I slipped my hands into my pockets.
“Yeah. Was just coming up to grab some aspirin.”
“Our backs ain’t what they used to be,” Nave agreed, nodding. “I was coming to take a shift in the room so you can get some sleep.”
I wanted to object.
I wanted to stay close to her.
But I also knew that I needed to get away, needed to get my head together.
“Thanks, man,” I said, turning, then making my way upstairs.
Alone in my room, I kicked out of my shoes, stripped out of my clothes, then climbed in the shower because I had Gracie’s coconut scent all over me, and if I was going to think straight, I needed to wash it away.
It was a silly goal, though.
There was no way I would be able to stop thinking about Gracie after everything that had happened between us so far.
I toweled off, put on some fresh sleep pants, brushed my teeth, and climbed into bed, trying to list all the reasons I couldn’t touch Gracie again, making myself flip through all the faces of the men who would be pissed at me, who might line up to take swings at me.
And I’d have to take it.
Because I knew the damn rules.
On a sigh, I reached over to plug in my phone before slowly starting to drift off to sleep.
I didn’t fully get there, though.
Because my door creaked open and quietly clicked closed.
Then Gracie was crawling up over my body.