8. Finn
FINN
The dock appears to be in shutdown due to a breach of security.
With every worker on high alert, and security crawling all over the place like ants emerging from the woodwork, we split up and focus on trying to find the woman with white hair that Tamara saw sprinting away from the landing shortly before I caught up with her.
Whoever she was, she’s obviously long gone by now, or she’s hiding in plain sight somewhere within the offices.
So, I head back to my car and wait for Tamara to meet me here as agreed.
I lean back against the hood, scanning the area for a glimpse of black hair with a green stripe in the glow of the floodlights keeping the dock operational at night, and realize that she might not come.
She might find her sister or get called to another job by her Pakhan or she just might not want to see me again.
And I have no way of contacting her.
Strolling into one of Leonid Ivanov’s offices and asking for her cell number is out of the question.
“Can I have Tamara’s number? I fucked her with my tongue at the Port of Chicago earlier and we have unfinished business.”
Aye, that’ll go down like a lead balloon, closely followed by a bullet through my brain when he realizes that I’m with the Irish mob.
So, I wait.
For a while, I focus on the dwindling activity on the quayside, routine maintenance being carried out, industrial-sized sacks of grain being shifted from a trawler onto transport, forklift trucks stacking loads ready for onward travel the following day.
But it’s hard to concentrate when I can still taste Tamara on my lips, and my loins are aching to touch her again. My gaze constantly drifts in the direction I last saw her heading, disappointment settling around my shoulders like a cloak made of thorns when she isn’t there.
I try to remember the lyrics of my favorite songs, singing them silently in my head, until I find myself racing ahead to the chorus and losing my way.
I think about the books I’ve read and match titles to authors, but I’m drawing too many blanks for it to be an effective distraction.
I push myself off the hood and start walking down to the Landing, but I only get a short distance before I remind myself that if she comes back and I’m not here, she’ll turn around and walk away.
And I might never see her again because, in her eyes, that will be whatever tiny sliver of trust I might’ve cultivated so far broken.
So, I wait a bit longer, alternating between ‘she’ll come’ and ‘I’ve blown it’ until my brain cells are spinning and my jaw is clenched so tightly it hurts.
Then, I hear the faintest snap of a twig behind the car, and I turn around, my gun in my hand and my finger on the trigger, to find her walking towards me, a small smile on her face.
“I could’ve killed you before you even knew I was here.” She waits by the passenger door.
I pocket my gun and circle the car to join her, my heart beating a crazy tune that I’m already starting to realize belongs to Tamara, like a ringtone chosen to reflect the caller.
Is it a subconscious thing, or is my heart operating separately from my brain since I met her twenty-four hours ago?
Even time has been manipulated into something unrecognizable.
Twenty-four hours that simultaneously feels like an eternity and the blink of an eye.
“But you didn’t.” I cup her face with both hands and kiss her, and she stands on tiptoes to return the kiss, pressing her slender body against mine.
And hello again, hard-on. I need to get this under control before it interferes with the rest of my life.
“Lucky for you.” She stands back when I release her, and stares into my eyes as if searching for something important. “I could’ve been the enemy.”
She makes my heart sing. It’s the only way I can describe how she makes me feel because I get the sense that jokes don’t feature regularly in her world, and yet she delivers the punchline with a dryness that many comedians would be proud of.
I fold my arms around her before she can protest and pull her into a hug, resting my chin on the top of her head while I wait for my pulse to settle down.
She came back.
She could’ve walked away, but she made the conscious decision to come back to me tonight.
There’s so much that I want to do to her, so much that I want to say, but I know I need to rein it in because charging in like an army on horseback will scare the fucking life out of her, and those shields will be back up before she’s even buckled into the passenger seat of my car.
“Noted,” I say, releasing her and opening the front passenger door. “I’ll be more careful in future.”
Tiny lines appear between her brows as she studies me. “Are you always this careless?”
I smile. “Only around you.” Fuck. I realize how it sounds the instant the words leave my mouth. I’ve never been great at making conversation with women, but she has me overthinking everything I say because I don’t want to hurt her unintentionally. “And that’s my bad, not yours,” I quickly add.
She nods once and climbs into the car.
Adrenaline is pumping around my veins when I climb into the driver’s seat and start the engine. It feels wrong to discuss what comes next, but I don’t want to assume that she’ll come back to my apartment with me. Bizarrely, this felt a whole lot easier when our paths crossed unexpectedly.
I face her in the gloomy interior, the car’s headlamps casting golden tunnels across the unused land around us.
“Yes,” she says before I can speak.
I smile. “You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to ask me if I want you to fuck me again, and the answer is yes.”
My smile turns into a chuckle. “That wasn’t exactly how I would’ve worded it…”
“Why not? Why wouldn’t you say what you mean?”
Because I don’t just want to fuck her. I want so much fucking more than that I’ve already imagined us old and gray, sitting on a wraparound porch overlooking a stream with a tire swing for our grandchildren, the perfect picnic spot under an old oak tree, and two golden retrievers sitting between us with their tongues lolling out of their mouths.
Here goes. “Because I do want to fuck you, Tamara. I want it so badly, I could tear your clothes off you now and bury my face between your legs, and I’d be a very happy man.”
She chews her bottom lip, and it’s an invitation to kiss her right there.
So, I do.
“But this isn’t just about me wanting to fuck you.” My thudding heart is literally making me feel nauseous.
“What is it about?”
“It’s about me wanting you.”
For several long beats, she peers into my eyes, our faces so close our breaths are mingling in the darkness. Then, she says, “Okay.”
I tug her jacket off her shoulders before the elevator doors in my apartment building close behind us.
Her T-shirt is next. My mouth closes around her pierced nipple, my tongue flicking the silver post while I suck her nipple into a solid swollen nub.
She fists my hair, holding me against her, demanding more without words.
I kneel in front of her and make tiny red patterns with my kisses across her ribs, crushing her naked breasts with one hand, and unzipping her skirt with the other.
When the elevator door opens, a primeval growl erupts from somewhere deep inside me, longing, desire, lust, call it whatever, my control barely hanging on until we can cross the hallway and reach my apartment.
I grab her panties with both hands and rip them off her, leaving her standing in front of me naked wearing only her Doc Martens.
I grip her hips, pull her towards me, and suck on the mound of her pussy like a dying man tasting food after months of starvation. She clings to my hair, thrusting her pelvis into my face and spreading her legs, inviting me in.
I suck her folds, her clit, her mound, savoring the moments before I slide my tongue inside her. She whimpers when I curl my tongue around the spot, working her clit with my thumb.
“Come for me, baby.” Fuck making her wait. I want to taste her juices, drink her up, fucking feast on her.
Tamara grips the sides of the elevator and spreads her legs like a starfish. “I want your fingers too,” she manages between raggedy breaths.
“Oh boy are you gonna get them, sweetheart.”
I slide my tongue out of her and replace it with two fingers as the elevator door shuts again but doesn’t move. If it moves, we’re in trouble, but I’m going to make her come all over my face regardless of who else is waiting for us to get out. This is happening right here, right fucking now.
Her slick trickles down my fingers to my wrist as I stretch her walls and lick her clit.
Her orgasm must’ve been on the brink before I touched her, because she groans out loud as her body starts to convulse, her legs trembling either side of my face.
I don’t keep it coming. I slip my fingers out of her dripping wet pussy, put her over my shoulder in a firefighter hold, grab her clothes from the elevator floor, and punch the OPEN button.
“You don’t have to carry me,” she says, straightening her spine and trying to climb down me.
“I’m not done with you yet.” My voice is still a growl, my erection painful inside my pants. “I’m not letting you go until I’ve kept my promise.”
“What promise?” She stops struggling and wraps her legs around my chest, and fuck, my cock tries to break free when she rubs her wet pussy against my chest.
“To fuck you on every available surface of my apartment and then fuck you some more.”
I fumble with the key in the lock of my front door, a maneuver I’ve carried out a thousand times without issue, but never with a beautiful naked woman wrapped around me and a pussy crying out to be fucked.
We barely make it through the door and close it behind us before she is in my arms, her breasts crushed against my chest, her ankles crossed behind me, and her tongue in my mouth.
“I didn’t agree to this promise,” she murmurs, sucking on my tongue until it hurts.