Chapter 7
GAGE
She stares up at me from under impossibly long, thick lashes with dark, uncertain eyes, as if my question somehow confuses her when what I’m asking should be obvious.
This entire time, since the moment we met, it should have been obvious what I wanted—to be this close. To have her under me and trusting in me enough to allow me to show her how good it can be to let go.
I brush my fingers across her lips again, wanting so badly to take them with another kiss.
But not until she answers me.
Not until she tells me with words what she really wants.
“Tell me, Bishop. Can I?”
She tries to hide behind this impenetrable wall she puts up around herself, around her heart, but I see it there—the need, the desire. To be touched. To be loved. To be seen and know she’s more than just her job.
It matches my own.
She’s just too afraid to admit it.
Too afraid to give in to the attraction that’s been sparking between us since the moment she pinned me to that floor. Too afraid that everything I’ve told her might be true.
I dip my head closer, giving her every chance to say no, to push me away, to tell me to get lost, and I pause with my lips a mere hairsbreadth from hers.
Prepared to stop. Ready to admit defeat where breaking through to her is concerned.
But she closes the distance between us and presses her lips to mine.
The kiss is harsh, greedy, like she’s desperate for what I’m offering or terrified that she’ll realize what she’s doing if she gives herself even a moment to think about it.
But Bishop isn’t the type of woman who does anything she isn’t one hundred percent on board with, which is probably what’s really scaring her.
How real this feels.
How much she doesn’t want me to stop.
She runs her hands through my hair, her mouth moving against mine as she shifts under me, trying to press her entire body to mine.
I keep a tiny bit of space between us, holding myself up and away from her, but there’s no hiding my hard cock digging into her upper thigh, the way my body responds to having her this close.
“You haven’t answered me, Bishop.” I lick along the seam of her lips, and she groans and digs her nails into the back of my neck. “I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you say ‘yes.’”
More than want it.
I need it.
To confirm she knows exactly what I’m asking for and that she’s freely giving it to me with not just her body, but her mind, too.
Because that’s where she’s trapped.
In her own head.
This idea that she has to be one thing and one thing only.
She gasps as I drag my free hand down between her legs to cup her there, and her hips arch up to grind against my palm. “Yes.”
It’s such a simple word, only three tiny letters, but I know that her saying that took a massive amount of courage.
She’s always taking care of everyone but herself, always thinking about other people, what they need instead of what she does. But this moment is about her. Only her and what I can do to make her soar.
I press the pad of my palm to the apex of her thighs, and she rolls her hips up again, releasing a tiny mewl at the friction it creates in exactly the right spot.
God, that sound…
My blood heats. My hands itch to touch every inch of her skin. My cock aches to be buried inside of her. And I so desperately want to strip her bare and bury my face between her thighs right now.
But while we may be alone out here at the moment, someone could come walking by at any second, could interrupt us and steal this little sliver of time that we have, and I won’t risk that.
The threat is enough to make us frantic.
Knowing it has to be fast.
I fumble with the button on her jeans but manage to pop it free and pull down the zipper. Before I can slide my hand in, she reaches to her hip, lifts her shirt, and grabs a gun from a holster.
The sudden appearance of a firearm should give me pause, but the fact that Bishop is carrying doesn’t surprise me in the least.
I would have been more surprised if she weren’t.
She sets it beside us on the blanket, and now that she’s moved it, I can glide my hand along her hot, smooth skin, spreading my palm out across her stomach and dipping my fingers lower.
Bishop bucks at the contact, grinding even harder against my hand when I reach lower. I capture her mouth with another searing kiss, matching her desperation with my own.
She moans, her hands clinging to the back of my head, her nails digging in there, that small, sharp bite of pain enough to make me crave even more, to need it, and when my fingers finally find her core, it’s a glorious epiphany.
“Christ, Bishop.” I groan against her lips. “So fucking wet.”
I slide a finger easily into her, her body contracting around it the same way I wish it were my cock. It throbs, demanding to be there. But I won’t give in to that desire.
Not here.
Not now.
Not tonight.
She clings to me like I’m the only thing keeping her from floating away.
Maybe, in this moment, I am. I’ve forced her to admit things tonight that she might not have been ready to face, and she has looked so lost that this dark park might have been the perfect place for her to completely disappear.
But I refuse to let her hide from me or from herself.
Not now.
Not ever.
I thrust my finger in and out of her slick heat slowly, grazing my thumb across her clit in a lazy rhythm that has her hips thrusting to meet me, trying to force me to move harder and faster.
And I can’t deny her that.
I match her rhythm.
Sharing breath as I devour her mouth and she fucks my hand relentlessly.
My thumb swirls rapidly as I slide a second finger into her. Her back bows toward the stars now speckling the night sky with a gasp. I take her mouth again. Desperate to capture every little sound she makes and consume them. To keep them inside me forever knowing this moment won’t last that long.
Her body trembles under mine.
She’s close, so fucking close.
Bishop tears her mouth from mine, tipping her head back, and I graze my teeth along the column of her extended neck.
She finally snaps.
Her cunt pulses around my fingers, her hips arching, her mouth falling open on a sharp cry.
I capture it with another kiss, swallowing down her pleasure as it ripples through my own body.
Good God…
Teeth gritted, I use every ounce of my willpower to hold back my own release. Because when I do come, it’s going to be inside this woman. Nowhere else.
She rides out her orgasm with her body arched into mine, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Bishop coming undone under the stars.
Her total escape from everything.
Fuck yes.
I’d give anything to know how to make this moment go on forever. To find a way to help Bishop break free from all the things that weigh her down. To ensure she can float away on a cloud of sheer bliss indefinitely.
But it has to end.
All good things do eventually.
A sad reality that I had hoped might hold off for a few more moments.
When she finally starts to sink down, I pull my fingers from her body and slip them into my mouth, licking off every bit of her release.
Her eyes flutter open in time to catch me doing it, and her already labored breath hitches. “God…”
I chuckle as I brush a kiss across her parted lips. “You can call me that if you want to.”
She shoves playfully at my chest, the touch making me crave even more of it. Without the barrier of my shirt between us. With nothing but her skin against my own. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” I grin, loving how relaxed she looks in this moment. “But I mean it.”
Her eyes soften to the warm bourbon color I could drink down all day but rarely see.
This is how they look when she isn’t worrying, when she’s let go of being the Bishop she thinks she needs to always be and allows herself to be the one she wants to be.
The one she deserves to be. “I’d rather just call you Gage. ”
“That works, too.”
And hearing it again—my name from those beautiful lips—makes me simultaneously wish I had never met this woman and that I could spend every waking moment with her.
* * *
BISHOP
Something changes in Gage’s gaze.
The warm, welcome depths of his blue eyes suddenly shift to something darker. Something harder.
Like he’s shutting down, shifting away, and then he does so physically, moving back slightly and putting some space between our bodies.
I immediately miss the heat, the weight of him on top of me, that leather and spice scent of his invading each breath.
A chilly breeze floats over me, and I shiver as I reach to zip and rebutton my jeans before anyone who might be out here randomly strolls by and discovers what we’ve been doing.
Holy shit, Bishop…
Gage clears his throat, then reaches back and grabs the bottle of wine and takes a long pull from it, offering it to me as he swallows.
The mood has changed.
The balmy night air now feels cold, raising goosebumps all over my skin.
Reality comes back in a rush.
I scrub my face with my hands, trying to figure out how the hell I just let that happen. When I reopen my eyes, he’s holding the bottle out in front of me, and God knows I need it to try to help me make sense of it all.
How did I go from being suspicious of this man to coming on his hand?
The answer isn’t clear, but the little flashes he gave me of himself tonight somehow coalesced into a completely different view of him. And the way he seemed to see right through me left me feeling exposed and raw.
I snag the bottle from him, focus on the water, and take a huge drink.
The heavy tannins and sweetness of the red wine splash against my tongue as the vision of him licking my release off his fingers flashes through my head.
My pussy throbs, my clit pulsing in a way that has me shifting to try to relieve some of the pressure.
This was a mistake.