11. Harley
Harley
Icurse and would pull back, but Val tightens his grip.
Then he’s kissing me fully, the wet heat of his tongue and the press of his lips making me gasp.
Val doesn’t show any hesitation at all, licking deeply into my mouth, mapping out every spot that makes me whimper and shiver.
I cling to him, finding those broad shoulders with eager hands and curling my fingers against the hard muscles beneath them.
My eyelids slide shut and I try to get closer as I open wider for him.
The rich, sweet, coffee taste of him is an aphrodisiac when such a thing has never been so before. I’ve never paid attention to what a guy tastes like when we kiss, but Val is a flavor I could quickly grow addicted to.
Val tilts his head and tips mine slightly as well, and I moan as my mouth is plundered even more perfectly. I can’t quite process the sucking, licking, nipping. It all registers, but as sharp beacons of pleasure swamping my senses.
“Gross,” someone finally yells.
Val raises his head, a low, rumbling sound spilling from him. I open my eyes and see swollen lips, shiny and wet, and the dangerous glint in Val’s eye as he continues to growl.
I cant my head, trying to see who Val is glaring daggers at, but he still holds my face framed between his big hands. Only when the sound of footsteps retreating at a fast clip fades am I released.
I don’t, however, let go of Val.
His erection is still a hot spike against my belly.
“Harley,” Val begins.
Then he sighs and rests his chin on top of my head, looping his arms low behind my back.
“Can we go to your place?” I force myself to ask. It isn’t my place, but the idea still makes me nervous. Not as nervous as Val leaving me alone tonight, though.
“I thought you wanted to know if I followed you,” Val says.
Suddenly, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear anything that might force me to turn away from him.
“I was chasing you. You don’t seem like a serial killer or anything. If you promise you won’t hurt me, I might believe you.”
I really, really might, which is terrifying and wonderful all at once. Of course, I never used to have to ask such things.
“I would never physically hurt you, Harley,” Val says in a voice stripped raw. “I’m not that sort of man, but if you mean—”
“I meant physically,” I cut him off, desperate not to hear the rest of that sentence. “Totally. It’s just a one-off, or however many offs we can get in a night, yeah?”
I wait for him to nod.
“Not like I’m gonna fall head over heels for you that quick no matter how well-hung you are. Never did with any other hook-up, and there’s been more than a few of them.”
Val does the growling thing again and I don’t ask why. I just enjoy the way it makes my body ache with a need I haven’t felt in too long.
“Your place?” I ask.
“You’d feel safe?” Val grabs my chin, making me look at him again. “Alone with me, a guy you don’t know, in a locked apartment?”
I frown, something about the question making me feel exposed, as if Val knows what happened to me.
That’s impossible, though.
I haven’t told anyone what I’ve really been through.
Val must take my hesitation for a no because he starts backing up, so I cling to him.
“No, I mean yes—”
Val’s arms tighten around me again and then the world spins crazily. I squeal as my feet leave the ground. Val grunts, the sound carrying a note of pain, and then we’re moving into the dark alley beside the club.
A second later I’m set back on my feet and pressed against a wall.
I barely have time to blink before Val drops to his knees and buries his face against my groin.
“Oh my God,” I gasp, fisting my hands on top of his shoulders.
“Please, please, please,” I beg, struggling to keep my eyes open as my heart slams in my chest. “Please, I haven’t—except when I was asleep this morning and I don’t know why—I just—please!”
That I’ve become a babbling idiot might embarrass me later, but right now I’d beg for just about anything.
“I have you,” Val murmurs.
His breath is warm through the denim of my jeans.
“Relax. I won’t leave you needing.”
I whimper and suck in my bottom lip.
I can’t see very well in the dark alley, so I give up and close my eyes. My head feels too heavy for my neck and I rest my chin on my chest as Val runs his hands upward and plucks at my nipples.
“Ah,” I pant.
Then I quickly bite my lip again.
This isn’t the place to be noisy, and if I’m too loud Val will have to stop. And that would just make me stabby.
“Good,” Val murmurs, as if he somehow knows exactly what I’m thinking. “I’ll want to hear every sound you make, once you trust me.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
Fortunately, I don’t need to talk because Val follows the statement by dragging his mouth over me through my jeans, and any possibility of speech vanishes anyway.
Val keeps teasing me while working at my jeans, and I begin to quiver, from deep in my belly all the way out to my shoulders and knees.
When Val uses his apparently very talented mouth to unfasten and unzip my jeans, I want to write him an ode or something.
Then he finally gets me free and licks me, that wet tongue on my bare cock since I haven’t bothered with underwear.
I thunk the back of my head on the wall when I jerk, swallowing a shout.
The stars that burst to life behind my lids aren’t all from the head-thumping, either, because Val sucks my cock in to the root in one swift move.
My balls draw snug in a heartbeat, my lungs seizing up as heat races through my bloodstream and pleasure spreads from my core—which happens to be my nuts, it seems—and shoots to my cock.
Val rumbles around my length, and slick, tight muscles contract around my tip at the same time my nipples are tweaked. My lips part on a soundless gasp as I jut my hips, cum spurting from my slit into Val’s welcoming mouth.
It’s, I think, a moment or two later once my head reattaches itself to my body, the shortest blow job I’ve ever had, because I go off like a God damned bottle rocket.
That isn’t all because I haven’t come lately, the morning notwithstanding since I wasn’t awake for that.
Val has some mad dick-sucking skills—that’s the main reason I come so quickly.
I drag my lids up and groan softly as I look down at Val, who’s still gently sucking my cock. I don’t know what to think about the fact that I’m still erect. I’ve always had a quick recovery time, but not like this.
I realize Val is watching me as he laves a thick vein. I unfist my hands and touch his hair. The short dark strands are as soft as anything I’ve ever felt. I can only think of comparisons like silk and butter in my befuddled sex-drunk mind.
When Val smooths his hands down and lets my dick slip from his lips, I just about sob because I don’t want to leave Val’s mouth, ever.
Except I want to kiss him again, and having Val’s mouth on mine and around my dick at the same time is...
a fucking intriguing fantasy I’ll be beating off to in the near future.
The change in Val is immediate enough that my own body reacts before my brain catches up.
One second he’s looking at me with heat and concern tangled together in his expression. The next, every trace of softness vanishes beneath something colder and sharper. His shoulders square subtly. His head tilts just slightly, like he’s listening for something distant.
My stomach drops.
“What?” I whisper automatically.
Val’s gaze moves past me toward the mouth of the alley.
“Nothing,” he says too quickly.
Bullshit. I know bullshit when I hear it.
Fear prickles immediately across my skin, fast enough that my earlier arousal turns sick and unstable in my stomach.
I glance over my shoulder toward the street.
Cars move normally beneath the traffic lights.
A couple stumbles past laughing loudly, too drunk to walk straight.
Music still spills from the club every time the door opens.
Everything looks fine and that somehow makes it worse.
“What is it?” I ask again, quieter this time.
Val steps closer before answering, almost protectively. The realization hits me hard enough to momentarily override the fear.
He positions himself partly between me and the alley entrance without seeming to think about it. One large hand settles lightly against my lower back, warm and steady through my shirt. The touch should probably make me feel trapped after everything that happened with Joshua.
Instead it grounds me instantly.
“I think somebody’s watching,” Val says finally.
Ice slides through my chest.
“What?”
His jaw tightens. “Might be nothing.”
“You don’t sound like you think it’s nothing.”
Val exhales slowly through his nose, still scanning the street with that same focused intensity. Up close, I can see how alert he’s become now. Every muscle tight beneath his clothes. Every tiny movement controlled and deliberate. Dangerous. The word flashes through my head unexpectedly.
“Harley.” Val’s voice lowers. “Did anybody follow you from your apartment tonight?”
“No, at least I don’t think so.”
The answer comes automatically. Then uncertainty creeps in around the edges. I took a cab to Scoundrels. I was drunk half the night before. Distracted tonight. Hyperfocused on Val the second he walked into the club.
Would I even have noticed?
Val must see something change in my face because his hand presses slightly more firmly against my back. It’s possessive. Reassuring.
“You don’t have to panic.”
Easy for him to say.
My pulse is already climbing fast enough to hurt.
“What if it’s—” I stop abruptly.
Joshua’s dead.
I know that.
Marcus killed him.
Still, terror flashes through me so vividly that for half a second I can practically smell blood and antiseptic again.
Val’s expression sharpens immediately.
“Hey.” His voice gentles. “Look at me.”
I don’t want to but I do anyway.
His hand slides from my back up to my neck slowly enough that I can pull away if I want. I don’t. His thumb brushes just beneath my ear while he studies my face carefully.
“Nobody’s going to touch you tonight,” he says quietly.
The simple certainty in his tone nearly undoes me, because I believe him. I know I shouldn’t. I barely know this man. But standing here in the alley with his body partly shielding mine from the street, I believe him completely. And maybe that’s the most dangerous thing happening tonight.
I swallow hard and glance away first.
“You can’t promise that.”
“Watch me.”
Jesus Christ.
The words hit low and hot despite everything else. Val suddenly curses softly under his breath and drags one hand down his jaw like he’s frustrated with himself.
“You should go home,” he mutters. The idea fills me with immediate dread and it’s not because of the possible watcher, but because going home means being alone again. The realization horrifies me enough that I laugh once weakly under my breath.
Val looks back at me instantly. “What?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head hard. “Just realizing my life’s become completely insane.”
One corner of his mouth twitches faintly. “Fair.”
Silence settles briefly between us again.
The air still feels too tight around my lungs, but the panic has eased slightly beneath the steady weight of Val’s attention.
He keeps touching me lightly, absent-mindedly almost, thumb stroking once along the side of my neck before his hand drops again.
It’s like he can’t quite stop checking that I’m okay.
Nobody’s done that in a very long time. The thought brings a sharp ache to my chest.
“I should probably leave,” I say eventually, though I don’t move.
“Probably.”
Neither of us budges.
A group of men exits the club laughing loudly, shattering the fragile little bubble that’s formed around us. One of them glances our way briefly before continuing down the sidewalk with the others.
Val’s body stays tense until they’re gone.
Definitely not nothing then.
I study him more carefully now. The limp.
The scar. The constant awareness under his calm exterior.
Earlier, at the club, I thought maybe he looked dangerous in an exciting way.
Now I’m starting to think dangerous might simply be what he is.
Strangely, the realization doesn’t frighten me nearly as much as it should.
“Who are you?” I ask quietly.
Val stills. Then he looks down at me with an unreadable expression.
“Somebody trying to do the right thing.”
I rub suddenly cold hands against my jeans and glance toward the street. “I should get a cab.”
“I’ll ride with you.”
The immediate response sends warmth through my chest before suspicion follows close behind it.
“To make sure I get home safe?”
“Yes.”
“That your thing?” I ask lightly. “Picking up strange men in clubs and escorting them home?”
Val huffs out a soft laugh.
“No.”
“Good.” I look away quickly before he can read too much on my face. “Wouldn’t wanna feel unoriginal.”
For a second neither of us says anything, then Val reaches up unexpectedly and brushes his knuckles lightly against my cheek.
The touch is brief.
Gentle.
“Harley,” he says quietly.
Just my name.
Nothing else.
But the way he says it makes my chest tighten so hard I can barely breathe around it.
And suddenly I know with terrifying certainty that if I let this man matter to me, he could destroy me completely.