Chapter 10 Milo #2
She inhaled through her nose. Slowly. Deliberately. The way she cataloged the world. "You showered. But you don't smell right. You used someone else's soap."
"Yes," I whispered.
"Why?"
Jesus Christ.
Tell her. Tell her and maybe she'll put a stop to this before it goes any further.
"Because I killed a man tonight and then I had to clean up the scene and remove the body. I showered at his apartment because I couldn't risk anyone seeing me covered in blood."
My heart stuttered in my chest, then began to beat fast and hard as the seconds ticked by and she didn't react.
"Why?" she finally asked.
"Because he was following you, and he was going to hurt you."
"You don't know that," she argued.
"Yes," I told her. "I do."
She was quiet again, but only for a moment. "Oh."
"Does it scare you?" I asked. "What I did?" I held my breath as I waited for her answer, torn on what I wanted it to be.
She reached for my hand and I gave it to her. Her thumb traced a slow circle on the inside of my wrist, right over my hammering pulse.
"No."
What the hell was she saying? "It should," I told her. "It should scare the fuck out of you, Raven."
"You're probably right." She released my hand and stepped back from the doorway. "Do you want to come inside?"
For a moment, I could only stare at her. Then I crossed the threshold and the door clicked shut behind me. I turned and locked it, and the darkness swallowed us whole as I turned back to her.
"Yes."
The word hung between us. Heavy and irreversible.
The apartment was so dark, I could barely see her silhouette in the ambient glow of the streetlight coming in her living room window. So I let her lead me deeper into the room, my free hand finding the wall, the edge of a doorframe. She moved without hesitation, guiding me through her space.
Then she stopped and turned toward me, and my hands found her waist. Her skin was warm through the thin cotton of the t-shirt. I felt the curve of her hips beneath my thumbs. The dip of her waist. The faint tremor running through her body.
She was shaking.
But so was I.
"Raven—"
"Don't." She cut me off as her hands wandered up my chest to my face. "Don't tell me this is a bad idea. Don't tell me it's dangerous. Don't tell me you should leave." She traced my mouth the way she'd traced my jaw in that alley. Slowly, carefully, memorizing the shape of it.
There was nothing more to say as she rose on her toes, and her lips brushed my jaw. I was way past the point of turning back now.
With a low moan, I fisted her hair and yanked her head back, crushing my mouth to hers. She gasped, and I swallowed the sound, my tongue pushing past her lips, tasting her dark sweetness.
She kissed me back with a ferocity that matched my own as her fingers clawed at my jacket, shoving it off my shoulders.
It hit the floor behind me and I kicked it out of the way so she wouldn't trip over it.
Her hands found my shirt, yanking the hem free, nails scraping my stomach as she dragged it upward.
I broke the kiss long enough to rip the shirt over my head, then grabbed her again. Hauled her against me, chest to chest, her breasts soft and warm against my bare skin through nothing but that thin cotton.
"The shirt," I gritted out as I dropped hot, wet kisses to her lips, her cheek, her jaw, her throat. "Take it off. Now."
She gripped the hem and lifted it over her head in one smooth motion, tossing it out of the way.
And then there was nothing between us but skin.
I couldn't see her. All I had was touch. Scent. Sound. The same limited, heightened world she lived in every second.
My hands found her breasts first. They were full and heavy. Her nipples already hard against my palms, and when my thumbs dragged across them, she made a sound. A sharp intake of breath that punched straight to my cock.
"Christ." I palmed her, kneading, rolling her nipples between my fingers until she whimpered. "You've been hiding these under those pretty dresses you wear."
"Not hiding." Her voice was breathy, and I'd barely touched her. "People stare at me enough without giving them more of a reason to."
I lowered my head and took one nipple into my mouth, sucking hard, my teeth grazing the peak. She cried out, the sound loud, raw, nothing like the controlled woman who performed for the restaurant. Her fingers dug into my hair, holding me against her.
I bit down, not gently, and she cried out my name for the first time.
"Milo—"
I released her breast and kissed my way up to her throat. Found the spot where her pulse hammered wild and desperate beneath the skin.
And I bit there, too. Hard enough to bruise. Hard enough that she'd feel it tomorrow and the day after that. A mark at the base of her throat that no dress would hide.
Mine.
"Turn around," I said against her skin.
"What?"
I spun her by the hips. Pressed her back against my chest, one arm banding across her stomach, the other sliding up to wrap around her throat.
She went perfectly still. Her pulse fluttered against my palm.
"You said you wanted to be wrecked." My lips grazed her ear. "Did you mean it?"
"Yes."
"Then you follow my lead. You do what I say, when I say it." I slid the hand from her stomach down, tracing the line of her hip, the plane of her belly, the edge of her panties. "And when I tell you to come, you come. Do you understand?"
Her thighs clenched. "And if I don't?"
A dark laugh rumbled through my chest. "Then I'll make you."
I slid my hand beneath the waistband. Found her slick and swollen and soaking through the fabric. The breath left my lungs like I'd been hit in the solar plexes by a bowling ball.
"Fuck, Raven." I dragged two fingers through her folds, slow and deliberate. She was drenched. Dripping.
I pulled her panties down her legs, and she stepped out of them. Then I lifted her—one arm under her knees, one behind her back—and carried her to the bed. I laid her down in the dark, and for a moment, I just stood there.
Listening to her fast breaths as she waited for me.
She was sprawled naked across sheets I couldn't see, and every sound was amplified in the blackness. The rustle of fabric, the quick draw of breath, the scent of her arousal thick enough to taste.
I unbuckled my belt. The clink of metal made her inhale sharp. Jeans and boxers hit the floor.
"Milo? Where are you?" she whispered.
I knelt on the bed. Found her ankles. Wrapped my fingers around them and pushed her legs apart.
"Right here."
I kissed the inside of her knee. Then higher. The soft skin of her inner thigh, where the flesh gave way like velvet. She trembled under my mouth, her hands fisting the sheets, her hips lifting toward me.
"Milo, please—"
"Please what, little bird?"
The sound she made was somewhere between a moan and a sob. "Please touch me."
"I am touching you."
"You know what I mean."
I did. And I made her wait anyway.
I kissed my way up her thigh with agonizing care, letting my breath ghost across her pussy without making contact. She squirmed, arching off the bed, trying to close the distance.
I pinned her hips to the mattress with both hands and held her there just long enough to drive her insane.
Then I licked a slow, flat stripe through her folds. Her back arched off the bed, her hands flew to my hair, and a sound ripped from her throat. Raw and animalistic.
I groaned against her pussy and ate her like I'd been starving for it. And maybe I had. Maybe I'd been starving my whole goddamn life, and this—her taste, her heat, the way her thighs clamped around my head and her fingers pulled my hair until my scalp burned—was my first real meal.
I sucked her clit into my mouth, moaning as she cried out.
"Oh my god— Milo— I can't—"
I slid two fingers inside her. Tight. So fucking tight that my cock jerked against the mattress, aching, leaking at the thought of being inside that heat. I curled my fingers, found the spot that made her whole body bow, and stroked.
"Come," I said against her. A command. Not a request.
"I—"
"Now, Raven."
She came apart on my tongue. Her inner walls clenched around my fingers, her whole body seizing, her voice breaking on my name as the orgasm ripped through her.
I worked her through it. Didn't stop until the aftershocks faded and her grip on my hair loosened and her breathing went from desperate gasps to long, shuddering draws.
"Good girl," I whispered against her thigh.
The moan she gave me at those two words nearly made me come undone.
I kissed my way back up her body. Her soft stomach.
The valley between her breasts. The hollow of her throat where my teeth had already left their bruise.
Found her mouth and kissed her deep, letting her taste herself on my tongue.
She whimpered and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me down on top of her.
Skin against skin. Her breasts against my chest. My cock hard and thick against her hip, and she rocked against it—instinctive, hungry—smearing her wetness along the length of me.
"Milo." Her voice was ragged. "Please. I need you."
"Shhh...I've got you."
I reached between us and gripped my cock. Dragged the head through her folds, coating myself in her wetness, nudging her clit on each pass until she was again writhing beneath me.
"You want this?" I pressed the tip against her entrance. Held it there. "Tell me."
"Yes—"
"Tell me who this belongs to first." I notched inside her—barely, just the head—and stopped. "This pussy, Raven. Tell me whose it is."
"Yours." The word came out desperately, stripped of every mask she'd ever worn. Not a performer. Not a blind girl. Just Raven, raw and aching for me. "It's yours, Milo."
"Good girl."
I pushed into her slowly.
One inch. Then another.