Chapter 16
“Fuck, baby. Tell me what you need.”
I can’t see the man’s face, but the coarse, strained voice floats up my body, caressing every naked inch of my stomach.
It’s familiar and so sexy that I make no effort to draw him up so I can look at his face.
Heat runs a slick trail around my belly button before curling higher and brushing my nipple.
I arch my neck and stare up at the ceiling, gasping in quick, unfulfilling breaths as the tongue on my breasts makes way for the hot suction of his lips.
My fingers slip through soft, long hair, grasping at the strands.
I feel something cold around his neck, and suddenly, I’m using his chain as a leash, yanking him closer.
“That’s it, Quinn. Show me what you like. I’m yours to use,” he grates, groaning roughly against my diamond-hard nipple.
I lift my hips, searching for relief. He’s hovering above me, lying in the cradle of my thighs, yet he won’t touch where I need him to. The endless tease is driving me to madness, and I use my hold on his hair to push his head back down my body.
His rough chuckle fans across my belly, then the top of my groin.
I shiver, moaning when his hair brushes my pussy, and I press up from the bed again, too close to begging.
He doesn’t hesitate when his tongue flicks out and runs across unshaved skin.
The throaty growl he releases floods my thoughts, distracting me well enough that I relax completely beneath him.
“Knew you’d taste like this. So fucking sweet—something just for me.”
He uses his fingers to part me before blowing a steady stream of air across my throbbing clit. His chuckle elicits another moan from me when I release his hair and grip his nape instead, terrified he’ll stop.
“I won’t stop. Not until I feel this perfect pussy flood my face. I’ll stay right here as long as it takes, baby. Use me how you need. The only thing I want is to make you come.”
It’s impossible for me to speak. My vocal cords are paralyzed.
The guy between my legs doesn’t seem to care, though.
He’s reading me just fine without words.
I nod in approval when he drags the flat of his tongue over my clit in slow, exploratory movements.
He hums against me, and I whimper, fisting the sheets at my side.
“I know what you like, Quinny. Why have you been fighting this, hmm?” He retreats just enough that he can look up at me through thick black lashes. The green eyes are sharp with arousal, burning and burning— “Keep your eyes on me. Fuck, just like that. Watch me make you come—”
There’s a loud bang around us, and I jerk beneath him, realization cutting through the haze of lust.
Did he just say Quinny?
Fucking Quinny.
Another bang sounds, still faint, like I’m trapped underwater. Suddenly, I’m looking down at Beck, watching as his mouth lifts from my crotch. The sight of his swollen, glistening lips sparks a rush of alarm as I go still, muscles solidifying.
My fingers appear in front of me, as wet as his mouth was. I’m swollen and aching between my legs when I shake my head and realize I’m alone. Sleep clings to my mind, cobwebs slowly disappearing as I jerk upright and shove the thick blanket off me.
“Amazing. Great. Incredible,” I mutter.
My skin is on fire when I slip from bed and head to the bathroom, needing . . . I don’t even know what I need. A lobotomy, maybe. Because what the actual fuck? A sex dream? Is that really what it’s come to?
God forbid a man touches me on the face without inciting a wet dream.
My bare feet slide across the cheap linoleum in the bathroom. It’s cold. Freezing, actually. And wet.
Glancing down at my toes, I shriek and stumble backward. The soles of my feet are slick now, and I slide across the floor before gripping the edge of the sink and steadying myself.
“What the fuck!”
There’s water coming up out of the shower drain.
The discoloured plastic bottom shows the water climbing up and over it, spilling all over the floor.
I freeze, watching as it keeps coming and coming, not showing a single sign of stopping.
The tightness in my chest gets worse when I realize it’s not going to.
Especially not when I’m standing here like this.
Springing into action, I step out of the bathroom and onto the hallway carpet.
It squelches beneath my feet, drawing another alarmed noise from me.
I move quicker, running into my bedroom and ripping my phone from the charging cord.
My fingers move on their own as I make a call and grab every single towel from my closet.
The line rings in my ear for so long my fingers start shaking around the phone. The carpet is even wetter now, with water crawling deeper into the hallway. I need to turn the water off. That’s—that’s what I have to do. If I do that, this will all be over.
“Quinn?”
The panic keeps me from blushing at the sound of Beck’s sultry, sleepy voice. “How do I turn the water off?”
“Water? What water?”
Maneuvering my phone into the crook of my shoulder, I tilt my head to keep it in place and drop the towels on the bathroom floor. They turn dark instantly.
“The water in my apartment! How do I turn it off?” I yell, my throat closing in. “There’s got to be a shut-off valve!”
“Uh—shit. Where’s the water coming from?”
I whip my head around the room. “Everywhere. It’s everywhere.”
“It’s got to be coming from somewhere. The toilet? A burst pipe in the wall? Is it coming from the floor or the wall, maybe?”
“The shower. It’s coming from the drain,” I ramble, kicking the sopping wet pile of towels to the edge of the shower. “It’s going to get into the café. Ruthie warned me about this! She told me something would burst and I’d flood the entire place. Fuck! Fuck, I don’t know how to turn the water off!”
I’m shouting now, my throat raw as I race from the bathroom and start grabbing the blankets and sheets from the closet.
“It won’t flood the shop. Keep the floor as dry as you can. I might lose the call here for a sec—”
The call drops, and I panic some more. The blankets and sheets fall to the bathroom floor, and the water soaks into all of the fabric. On my bare knees, with my phone still crunched by my ear, I shove the giant pile against the shower.
A beat later, my phone rings, and I answer the call. “Don’t hang up on me!”
“It was the elevator, baby. No signal. But I’m in my car now.”
I don’t give myself the time to fixate on how relieved those words make me feel. Instead, I nod rapidly and try to breathe.
“The valve might be downstairs. I’m going to look.”
“Good idea. If it’s not, we’ll check upstairs. Maybe by the laundry room.”
“I don’t have a laundry room!”
He doesn’t speak for a beat. I don’t bother with shoes as I whip open the door and run down the stairs, hoping to fuck I don’t get a giant sliver from the shitty stairs.
They creak with every step I take until I finally get to the bottom floor and tear my way to the mechanical room.
I ignore the way dust tickles my throat when I inhale.
“Find it?” Beck asks carefully, the tick of a turn signal mixing with his voice.
I grip my phone so I can stop craning my head to the side and hold it in place while I flick on the light and start my search. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
“A metal pipe with some sort of valve on it. Red, I think. My parents’ dishwasher flooded the kitchen once, and I think that’s what my dad cranked to shut off the water.”
“Red valve. Okay.”
I’m losing it now. Fear claws at my throat and chest, growing more painful the longer I stand here searching like an idiot.
“I’m pulling up.”
“Already? I can’t find shit in here.”
“Come let me in, Quinny. Gotta make another call.”
Beeping fills the small room before I let my hand drop and hurry to the front of the café. The door is slightly blurry as I see the figure standing behind it. My fingers shake when I unlock it and take a step back before Beck’s pushing his own way in.
I don’t speak, incapable of it. He swiftly locks it again and then takes my hand, locking our fingers and squeezing before tugging me back to that musty room. His thumb swipes my knuckles, distracting me.
“Yeah, I’m here, Dad. Tell me what I’m looking for. That’s right . . . The apartment is upstairs. Okay . . . I’m looking right now.”
My eyes lift to the phone he’s holding up with his free hand, as I suddenly remember him mentioning another call. He hasn’t let go of my fingers yet, and I make no effort to tug them away just yet. My grip tightens instead.
“Red valve? Yeah, found it.”
Much to my dismay, Beck releases my fingers all on his own.
He’s tugging up on a lever now, saying something to his father that I don’t listen to.
My first instinct is to run upstairs to see if it worked, so that’s what I do.
Without telling him where I’m going, I head for the stairs.
I don’t run ever, and my lungs scream when I reach the top and rush through my apartment.
There’s water pooling around the pile of soaking wet blankets and towels, but it hasn’t reached the carpet again. It’s stilled, just pooling on the linoleum now. My shoulders fall with relief. I force myself into the room and examine the shower, confirming it’s no longer gushing like a fountain.
I drop my head in my hands, breathing roughly against my damp palms.
“Looks good now. Thanks, old man. Tell Mom I’m sorry for waking her up,” Beck says behind me, still on the phone. “Love you guys, too. I’ll text you an update tomorrow. Night.”
“What time is it?” I croak.
The reality of what just happened is very slowly starting to creep in. I hadn’t even looked at the time when I grabbed my phone and called him. It was still dark out, though. I remember the streetlight across the street being lit when I let him inside.
“Three.”
Guilt has my stomach dropping into my ass. “I’m so sorry. You’re probably exhausted.”
“Not any more exhausted than you are. I thought I told you to get some sleep tonight.” His voice is a soft tease that almost has me laughing.
“My bad.”
Unlike me, he has no problem laughing, albeit a bit quieter than usual. “I’m glad you called. Don’t apologize.”
“You called your dad,” I blurt out, cheeks warm.
“I did. He knows more about plumbing than I do. About most things, actually. He’s used to calls like this from me. That’s what dads are for, after all.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
I instantly regret saying that. It’s the drop of adrenaline that’s got me feeling all out of place. For Christ’s sake, I was near tears from him dropping my hand so he could turn a water valve off. My emotions are too open right now.
He didn’t hesitate to get in his car and come help me.
Luckily, he doesn’t press me on the unwanted information I’ve just dumped on his lap.
“He gave me a contact for a contractor he knows. Who do you go through for insurance? We’ll need to take photos and get a claim started. I doubt you’re looking at any issues with the café itself. Was the water pooling for long?”
I’m jittery. My skin is clammy, and one glance down at my legs confirms I’m still wearing only my oversized sleep shirt that has a bleach stain on the right tit and a burn mark by the right thigh.
Not to mention, I haven’t shaved my legs for two weeks, nor brushed my hair since before I went to bed.
I tense, too aware of how close we are and that not only is he in my apartment, but in my bathroom.
We’re standing in the most private of rooms. The same space that I know is cluttered with dirty laundry that’s now beyond soaked, along with my pile of towels and blankets.
My toothbrush is on the corner of the vanity, along with my hairbrush that hasn’t been de-haired in way too long and the bottle of cheap perfume I picked up last week when I ran out of my good stuff.
May as well spill all of my secrets to this guy here tonight. At this rate, he’s going to learn them all anyway.
“Alright,” he murmurs. His hands fall to my shoulders, his thumbs sweeping up the sides of my neck, digging into the tight muscles.
The tension I hold there slowly loosens.
“One step at a time, yeah? First things first, you need to go pack an overnight bag because you’re not staying somewhere with no running water. ”
My head, while having started falling forward to make room for his thumbs, snaps back up. I spin to face him, a refusal already on my tongue.
“I’m serious. You go pack, and I’ll get these towels moved into the shower, at least so I can snap some pictures and we can get a plumber in here as soon as possible.
Once you’ve finished with the bag, find me your insurance information so we can get started on that, too.
The most important thing is to make sure our ducks are in a row so you don’t have to pay for anything. ”
“Our ducks? This is my problem. I’ll take care of it. And I don’t need running water to stay here. I’ll shower at Callie’s dorm or something until everything’s fixed.”
For the first time since he got here, I allow myself to look up at him. The shadow of stubble across his jaw and throat has a small ball of flame igniting between my legs. My eyes fall to his lips, remembering exactly how they looked in my dream, all swollen and wet . . .
“You’ve gotta stop looking at me like that, gorgeous. I’m trying to be a gentleman hero here,” he rasps.
“I’m not looking at you like anything.”
His eyes don’t shift even an inch as he draws a hand around to my nape and digs his thumb into the muscles there, finding a knot with little effort.
A soft, almost breathless sound escapes him when I close my eyes, so close to saying fuck it and telling him to do anything he wants as long as he doesn’t stop that.
“Your independence is one of the sexiest things about you, Quinn, but it’s also unnecessary right now. I want to help, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Even if I tell you to fuck off?” I ask, half panting.
“Especially then.”
“Maybe you’re more stubborn than I am.”
“Wouldn’t that be something,” he muses, moving his magic fingers up to the base of my head, working them through my hair. “So, yes? You’ll pack a bag and let me help?”
“I thought you just said it doesn’t matter what I think on the matter.”
“Gentleman, remember? I’m still gonna ask.”
I blow out a laugh and, for the first time in a long time, allow myself to lean on someone. Even when I’m not convinced he’ll stick around to keep me from toppling face first.