Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Hugo
Our first kiss is sloppy and desperate, all teeth and tongues and shuddery breaths.
It’s perfect.
“Rue,” I pant as I crush her against my chest, trembling with shock, relief, and adrenaline. “Fuck. I’m so fucking sorry. That response was… disproportionate. But I thought he was going to—”
A tremor rolls through me as I picture Rue with the gun to her head, Rue taunting the man who tried to take her away from me.
I hold her at arm’s length to confirm that she’s whole. To see how much I’ve terrified her with my actions.
What I see instead is the other half of me.
“You lost yourself,” she says gently. “But you came back. I knew you would.”
My eyes flutter shut in gratitude. She understands. Not only does she understand, she uses her sleeve to wipe away the blood on my face.
“I’ll always come back to you.” My eyes fly open. “And you know I’d never hurt you, not for—”
“I know.” Her words are immediate, but I can’t focus on the elation this should bring, not when there’s a mark across her throat from his arm. Not when she has scrapes on her cheeks and nose from dropping through the leash.
I brush my thumb over the spot on her temple where he pressed the gun. I could’ve lost her after only just finding her. I could’ve lost her.
I clutch her against me again.
“Hey,” she murmurs. “I’m okay. So are you.”
Her fingers grip my shoulders, telling me she’s still here.
It’s not enough. I sink my fingers into her hair and pull her lips back to mine, too starved for her to care about the blood that covers us.
She kisses me back, thank Christ, stroking my tongue with hers and moaning into my mouth as her hand moves to grip my cock through my pants.
“Rue.” I tear myself away and grab her wrist, unsure if I’m trying to stop her or help her. “You saw how out of control I was. W-we shouldn’t do this now.”
“Hugo.” She does a frowny imitation of my concerned tone. Then she grins. She’s so fucking beautiful smeared in blood, her hair a tangled golden cloud around her face and black makeup smudged around her eyes. “You’re Gomez. I’m Morticia. Of course we should do this now.”
Help her. I’m definitely helping her.
She gives a breathy gasp as I tumble her onto her back and search for the knife she dropped in the struggle. Once it’s in my hands, I wipe it clean on my pants and kneel over her, relishing her small to my large, her fierceness giving way to soft and languid.
“Yes or no?” I drag her shirt up her stomach with the handle of her knife, my dick pulsing with each inch of soft, pale skin I reveal. But it doesn’t take a PhD in psychology to spot the problem with using a weapon to ask for consent, especially after what she just saw me do.
I pull back, letting her shirt fall, and I’m about to toss the knife to the side when her voice stops me.
“Yes.”
Her burning eyes are fixed on the blade in my hands.
“Yes,” she says again, arching her back, offering herself to me.
Her chest rises and falls as I flip the knife and press the blade against the waistband of her leggings, parting the fabric down the middle in one smooth stroke.
Now I’m the one sucking in a choppy breath as I fall back on my heels to take in the white lace covering her pussy.
“Goddamn, Rue.” I drop the knife and strip off my bloody gloves so I can run my thumb over the damp patch at the center.
“Pick it back up,” she pleads, tilting her hips to give me better access.
Like hell am I saying no to that. I grab the knife and carefully—so fucking carefully—slice the delicate scrap of lace horizontally, thigh to delicious thigh. The material falls away, and all the remaining blood in my body rushes to my cock.
“You’re dripping, baby,” I murmur, sliding my thumb through all that wet. “Because of me? Or was it the kill?”
“I-it’s you, Hugo. It’s all of you.” She sits up and yanks on the button at my waist, fumbling open my zipper and shoving my pants and boxer-briefs down past my hips. Her gloves are slick on my skin as my cock springs free, and she falls back again, spreading her legs and smiling in invitation.
No more thinking. I cover her body with mine and slide into her with one thrust, not stopping until I’m buried to the hilt, my chest tight against hers and my breath trapped in my lungs. Then I hold completely still as my brain, heart, and body align with this new reality.
Neighbor girl. Morticia. Both halves of me finding a home in one single woman. And she’s the perfect fit, hot and slick and Rue.
“Hugo,” she breathes into my ear. “God. You feel incredible.”
My hips shift back and punch forward to fill her again.
“Nothing in my life has ever felt better,” I tell her, lost in the pleasure of having her voice in my ear—her real voice. I’ve heard her moans before, muffled through the wall. And fuck, that was also her in Howard Marshall’s closet, but I told myself it was nothing.
I should’ve earned the privilege of the uninhibited sounds I’m drawing out of her with my body.
I should’ve given her a bed and a solid hour of eating her pussy until she screamed that beautiful voice hoarse on soft sheets.
Instead, we’re both mostly clothed, and I’m pounding into her so hard I’m scooting her across the floor of a stranger’s house, inch by inch.
Fuck if she doesn’t love it, though. Those strong fucking legs wrap around my lower back and squeeze, and she throws her head back, her mouth soft and open and… frowning?
“Baby,” she gasps out, “please hump me away from the dead guy.”
I tear my eyes off her flushed face and realize I have, in fact, fucked us closer to the man’s New Balance sneakers.
“Shit, sorry.” I wrap my arms underneath her and roll us in the opposite direction, my cock never leaving the warmth of her cunt and her knees never losing their grip on my sides.
I resume my strokes when we land, and fuck, I need to slow things down, take the time to make sure she comes, despite the circumstances.
Because over my dead body—unfortunate turn of phrase—am I letting her flee this crime scene without an orgasm.
Easing myself out of the tight clasp of her body, I drag my cock over her slick seam and prepare to show her how thoroughly I can please her with my fingers, my mouth.
But she grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me down to kiss her, and who was I kidding?
I can’t go slow. Not tonight. Not when it’s her. Not when she almost fucking died.
With my scalp stinging from her grip and the fingers of her other hand digging into my ass, I drive into her harder, desperate for the sweetness of her mouth and the clench and pull of her pussy.
“Rue.” I say her name like a prayer as I stroke into her.
I called her Morticia in dark rooms and Rue in my head when I was alone in my sheets, but this is the first time I can breathe that name into her skin, and I’m doing it as I drag the base of my cock over her clit while I’m stretching her perfect pussy.
Because it is perfect. So perfect that I’m going to come soon.
I slide my thumb into her mouth, letting her suck it, soak it, then I press it to her clit and circle the hot little bud.
It only takes a few passes before her back arches off the floor in a series of spasms that clamp down on my cock and send white-hot sparks rocketing through me.
“God, baby, yes.” I groan. “Let that cunt throb around me. Make me come. Fuck.”
Her glittering eyes lock on mine as her body jolts with pleasure, and I’m so unused to being seen by this woman that I have to drop my head into the crook of her neck as I give up the fight, pumping jet after jet of my cum into her.
I lift my head once our breathing starts to return to normal and roll us so we’re lying side by side, my cock still inside her.
“This… isn’t how I pictured our first time,” I confess. “For one thing, you weren’t still wearing a shirt.”
She tilts her chin up to kiss me, a light brush of her lips that makes my cock stir again. “In my mind, you were definitely wearing fewer clothes.”
Fuck me, she thought about this? I grin at her as it all hits me again. “To be clear, this was even better than I could’ve imagined.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” She stretches like a contented cat. “I mean, it was good with Gomez—”
“Only good?” I give a little thrust against her sensitive cunt, and she shivers. “Because I vividly remember how hard Morticia came for me.” I dip my head to murmur in her ear. “Twice.”
She laughingly pushes me away, pink high on her cheeks. “You didn’t let me finish.”
“Baby,” I growl. “You finished.”
This earns me another teasing shove. It’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen her, and I want more. I want it all.
“What I mean is, it was good with Gomez, but this…” The humor disappears from her face as she presses her palm to my cheek. Just like last week, I lean into her touch. Then, it offered comfort when I was hurting. Now, it’s nothing but joy.
“I can’t believe this,” she says.
“You can’t.” I laugh softly. “It’s really you. You’re her.”
I kiss her again, slow and thorough, but reality’s starting to tiptoe back in, and I reluctantly ease out of her body.
As I do, she gives a tiny sigh that’s almost as satisfying as the sight of my orgasm trickling down her thigh.
I’d be worried about our lack of a condom if I didn’t know she’s got an IUD and had an all-clear checkup in June.
I got myself screened then, too, with the same results.
How do I tell her I’m creepily aware that what we just did hasn’t put her at risk?
I’m weighing my options, none of them good, when there’s a noise behind us, and we turn to see the dog creeping out from under the couch.
He cautiously approaches us, shivering and spattered with blood.
Rue gasps and reaches for him, but I’m faster, keeping hold of her with one arm and scooping him up with the other, cradling him to my chest.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Rue croons, stroking her fingers down his back and unclipping the bloody leash. “It’s all good now, dog.”