Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
Rue
Ishriek and practically leap out of my skin when Hugo runs his hand down my back when he joins me in bed.
He grimaces. “Sorry.”
I drop my phone, where I’ve been staring at a topographic map of Lester Timms’s property. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve never been this keyed up the night before a kill. It’s just…”
I gesture helplessly at the map on my screen, then at Hugo, our bed, our dog, our life.
“I know.” He leans against the padded headboard with a sigh, and I press my hand against his cheek. He turns his head and lays a kiss in the center of my palm.
We switched my bed for his yesterday in a bid to distract ourselves in the run-up to our chosen K-day: Christmas Eve, three days after our summit at Felicity’s and the first day I’ll be responsible for picking up any after-hours calls to the ME’s office.
It’s our best opportunity before charges are dismissed against Angie and Lester Timms becomes even more scrutinized and paranoid in the new year.
The plans came together fast, but unlike with Overton or even Greg, nothing’s rushed. We have Felicity on data and dissemination, Quinn on drugs and dosages, and Pell a phone call away if we need cleanup. More importantly, I have Hugo, and he has me.
His tongue tickles the notch between my first and second fingers. “What if we let the world sort itself out, and you and I just work straight nine-to-fives until we die of old age? Let the only thing I worry about be your awful chicken place.”
I yank my hand away. “What’s wrong with the Pluck and Fry?”
“Oh, Rue.” He shakes his head sadly. “Their most recent health inspection is a matter of public record.”
I narrow my eyes. “And you know this how?”
“I look it up twice a year.”
“Well, I’m still going to eat there,” I say with a sniff.
When he doesn’t answer, I take a closer look at him. He’s tired, his eyes dark and his lips tilted down. Even exhausted, he’s so handsome my heart catches in my throat. But I know it’s not the plan that’s costing him sleep.
“C’mon,” I say. “Our particular set of skills would be wasted as Dr. and Mrs. Nine-to-Five. You’d be so bored, you’d have the Pluck and Fry shut down inside a month.”
His lips twitch. “It’s true. There’s something in me…” He picks up my hand again, idly playing with my fingers. “It starts singing. And I need those kills to complete the song.”
“My poet.” I grin at him, dopey with love. “And me too. But mine’s more like, I don’t know, drums. This”—I tap the phone screen, where I’ve been visualizing my path back into Timms’s house—“is the only way to make them stop banging.”
“Banging, you say?” A wicked smile crosses his face. Then I’m on my back with my conversation-heart pajama pants stripped off me before I can even squeak.
“Banging,” I confirm breathlessly. “You and me, we’re a whole symphony, baby.”
This time I do squeal when he tugs on the gusset of my panties with his teeth.
“Neither of us is going to think about Lester Timms for the next seven and a half minutes,” he murmurs.
I gasp out a laugh as his breath coasts over my core. “That’s an extremely precise estimate, my love.”
He slides his fingers under the elastic at my hips and slowly peels the red satin down my legs. “Time me.” He nods at my phone, and I fumble for the app to start the clock as he drops his mouth to my clit.
Hugo’s made me come on his tongue plenty since the night I turned up in his bed, but his touch is just as electric as the first time.
Tonight, he’s going slow and licking me with slow, gentle strokes.
It’s not what I expected. My Golden Retriever boyfriend’s usually a little more energetic when he gets unfettered access to my pussy, but tonight he’s taking his—
I give a little jolt when his tongue starts to move faster, flicking me with urgency before slowing to his original pace. He repeats the sequence of quick flicks followed by slow ones until my hips are rising and falling in rhythm as he spins me up and eases me back down.
A dark “fuuuuuck” coasts across my wet skin when I slide my fingers into his hair, not because I’m pulling it or using it as a guide. It’s simply because I’m touching him. And I’m touching him because I still can’t believe I can. How did I get so—
He breaks rhythm again and firms his tongue, flicking it against my clit in a quick staccato, and now I am pulling his hair. I have no control over it. The sharp sensation drives me to another level after the smooth flat of his tongue, and I buck against him, tugging on those silky strands.
“You’re going to drown me, baby,” he says with a chuckle.
“Y-your fault!” I gasp. “How are you getting me there so fast?”
He pulls back to grin up at me, his face wet, his expression sex-drunk and happy. “You forget, neighbor girl. I’ve been listening to you and your vibrator for six hundred and fifty days. I know your patterns.”
“My…”
He dives back into his work, softening the quick thrusts and gradually ramping up the pressure until he’s tapping my clit with firm jabs of his tongue that have me writhing and panting.
He drops back down to that soft pressure again and repeats the build over and over until I’m ready to lose my mind.
Kind of like my goddamn vibrator patterns.
“Hugo! You are not!”
He doesn’t look up this time. “Yes, Rue, I am.”
Then he wraps his lips around my clit and sucks three times before releasing me.
“But here’s what I don’t know because I could only hear you.
” Another three strong sucks. “Do you pump your fingers in and out of this pussy while your other hand holds the toy?” Suck suck suck.
“Or did you clamp it in place with your thighs and use both hands to play with your nipples?” Suck suck suck.
“I’m on the clock here, baby. I need to know. ”
His hungry gaze travels up my body, over the diamond points of my nipples to my open mouth and hazy eyes.
“Tell me.” He nips my clit, just a quick sting to shake me out of my stupor.
“N-no fingers.” I shake my head, trying to remember words. “Yes nipples sometimes.”
Suck suck suck. “Then slide your fingers into your mouth and get them nice and wet so you can tug on those nipples while I finger fuck you.”
I obey, sucking on my fingers, then dragging them over my breasts, shuddering when the cool air hits my damp skin.
At the same time, Hugo works his long fingers inside me, the sound obscenely wet as he plunges them in and out.
When he fastens his mouth over my clit and sucks in one long, continuous pull, my back arches off the bed and I flatten my palms over my breasts with a cry.
My orgasm doesn’t so much build as erupt and sweep me along with it, my pussy clenching and throbbing on Hugo’s fingers.
My legs are still trembling from the aftershocks when I let my head fall to the side, my eyes struggling to focus on my phone.
“Four minutes and fifty-five seconds,” I tell him in a ragged voice. “You’re too good at that.”
He takes his time licking his lips. “Do you think I didn’t factor that in?
” Then he grabs my hips, hauls me against his face, and tongue-fucks me while rhythmically pinching my clit, driving my already sensitive nerves into a spiral that has me screaming my gratitude, moaning my love, and promising my forever as the second orgasm claims me, deeper and longer than the first one.
I’ve just started to come down to earth when my alarm chimes and Hugo flops next to me on the bed, pulls me across his chest, and kisses me stupid.
“Seven and a half minutes,” he whispers against my lips.
“No fair.” I’d pout if he’d left me with enough stamina to do anything more than convert oxygen into carbon dioxide. “I can’t return the favor. I’ve only heard you come on your own once, that last night through the wall. What’s your trick?”
“Trick?” His fingers trace lazy circles on my stomach, although his cock is pointed straight at the ceiling, begging for attention.
“Like you just did now,” I say. “Slow, wave, thrust, fast. You know my cheat code. What’s yours?”
He shakes his head. “No tricks, no cheat codes. Just you.” He kisses me again, slow and sweet. “You smiling at me in the driveway. You standing close enough at one of my crime scenes that I can smell your hair. You in my bed.” He shrugs. “That’s all it takes. That’s the cheat code.”
I have to bury my face in his chest before I can speak.
“I love you,” I say against his neck. I slide down his chest, stopping to kiss the spot over his heart, and say it again. “I love you, Hugo.” Then I wrap my lips around his cock and don’t speak at all for another seven and a half minutes.
Later that night, after a quick doze, some rehydration, and a long, languid fuck, we let Cosmo back into the room and start getting ready for bed—always a challenge as I try not to get distracted by my man’s preference for sleeping bare-chested and he tries not to make it too obvious that he’s ogling my boobs under my sleep shirt.
“Do you have an eye mask?” I ask him once we’re settled side by side under the covers. When his face lights up, I pat his thigh. “Down, boy. Not for that. I’d like a little help blocking out the light so I can sleep.”
“Damn,” he says with a grin. “There should be one in the nightstand, and I’ll add blackout curtains to the shopping list.”
“You spoil me.” I rummage through the drawers and emerge with a black satin eye mask. But before I slide the door shut, I spot a sealed envelope with my name on it. Hugo freezes when he sees what I’ve found.
“That… ah…”
I raise my brows and wait.
“I was going to give that to you the day you moved out, but I decided…”
He looks away.
“You decided what?”
His voice is directed at the wall that used to separate me from him. “I decided to let you go without forcing you to tell me to go to hell one more time. I’d done enough to you by then.”
I study the thick envelope with a frown. “So this is another explanation for the cameras?”
“No.” He shakes his head, but at least he’s looking at me again. “It’s taking responsibility for all the things I did. My confession, I guess.”
“Ironic,” I say, “given what we’re doing tomorrow.”
“I suppose.” He shifts, the muscles of his chest shifting under his skin.
“I took from you without your permission. So that’s a complete list of me.
Not Dr. Mohr or Gomez or your neighbor at the mailbox.
Just… me.” His big hands bunch the comforter, then release it.
Bunch and release. “I wanted you to have it, but I didn’t want to burden you with it. ”
“Hugo.” I rest my fingers on top of his. “I want it. I want all of you.”
“You have all of me.” He lifts our joined hands to brush a kiss over my knuckles. “This just puts it in writing for you.”
We both stare at the crisp white envelope for several seconds, and even though I’m burning with curiosity, I set it down on top of the nightstand.
“Not tonight.” When he opens his mouth to object, I kiss his knuckles right back. “When I read all of you, I want to give it all of me, and I can’t do that with him in my head.”
Hugo’s expression is still troubled, so I take his face in my hands and say, “It’ll help, knowing your words are waiting for me afterward.”
The tension leaves him, and he pulls us under the covers once more so my back is tight against his front.
He kisses the nape of my neck as he reaches for the mask I dropped on the mattress.
The last thing I see before he settles it over my eyes is my name in his handwriting.
The last thing I feel before I fall asleep is his strong body curling around me in the dark.