14. The Payload #3
"I have to fuck you." No embellishment. No apology.
"Two options." He brushes a damp strand of hair from my face, the gentleness a brutal counterpoint to the crude demand.
"I can take you on your knees. It'll be rough.
It'll be fast. Or you can ride me. I'll show you how to set the pace, how to take what you need. "
The options hang in the damp air between us. My body is still humming from the orgasm, and the thought of either scenario sends a dark thrill coiling low in my belly.
On my knees. Or on top of him.
The analytical part of my brain—the part that counts beats and measures tempo and calculates the precise angle of a grand jeté—processes both scenarios with the clarity of a dancer evaluating choreography.
Riding him means control. It means setting the pace, learning the rhythm, watching his face as I take him apart from above. The thought is intoxicating. I want that. I want to watch his expression shatter while I dictate the tempo.
But not yet.
Not tonight.
Tonight, the fantasy still burns hot behind my ribs.
The one that started when I dropped to my knees on the cold concrete and felt the surrender unlock something feral and bright inside me.
The fantasy of being taken, directed, consumed.
The fantasy of ceding every ounce of control to a man who wields authority the way I execute a pirouette.
"When you come back ..." I press my palm against his chest, directly over the steady, powerful rhythm of his heart, "show me how to ride you. I want that." My fingers curl against his scarred skin. "But right now—I'd kind of like this fantasy to continue."
The hunger in his expression sharpens into something predatory and reverent at the same time.
"Turn over." The choreographer resuming control.
I roll onto my stomach, my heart slamming against my ribs. His hands grip my hips and pull me back, positioning me on my hands and knees at the edge of the bed. The canvas groans beneath us. The rain hammers the corrugated roof. The humid air raises goosebumps down my back.
He leans over me, his broad chest pressing against my back, his mouth grazing the shell of my ear.
"Remember what I taught you." His voice is rough gravel wrapped in dark velvet. "Breathe. Relax. And when I tell you to do something—"
"I do it." I finish the sentence, my voice steady despite the tremor wracking my frame.
His low, wrecked laugh ghosts across the back of my neck.
Then he pushes inside me, and the world outside the rusted door ceases to exist.
The angle is different from before—deeper, more intense, hitting a spot that triggers a gasp I couldn't suppress if my life depended on it. His hands grip my hips, holding me steady while he sets a rhythm that starts controlled and quickly unravels into something fierce and primal.
My body absorbs the impact, and I brace against the thin mattress.
My back arches into the pressure, instinctively adjusting the angle—the same way I adjust a fouetté in midair, responding to the physics of momentum and force.
The coordination is automatic, a dancer's discipline answering his brutality with grace.
"Harder." The word escapes my lips before I register the thought.
He obeys. The rhythm shifts—faster, deeper, the sound of skin against skin joining the percussion of the rain on the metal roof. His breathing turns ragged, his grip tightening on my hips, pulling me back to meet every thrust.
The second orgasm builds fast, climbing with a ferocity that steals rational thought. The pressure coils low and hot and inescapable, and I bury my face in the canvas as it breaks over me.
He follows moments later, his body slamming forward one final time before going rigid, a harsh groan tearing loose as he spills inside me. The release shudders through both of us.
The aftermath is silence except for the rain.
He collapses beside me on the narrow bed, pulling me against his chest. His arms wrap around my bare torso, crushing me against the heat of his scarred skin. His heart hammers against my spine, a wild beat slowly returning to something resembling human.
I press back into him, fitting into the contour of his body the way a ballerina fits into a lift—trusting the partner, trusting the structure, trusting the arms.
"If I fail tomorrow ... If I don't pull her out, and they come for you ..." The confession is a broken whisper against my hair. The vulnerability is bare, unguarded. The operator is terrified.
"You won't fail." I turn in his arms, pressing my lips against the rough stubble on his jaw, holding him fiercely.
The roles reverse. The protected becomes the protector.
"You never miss. You're going to tear that fortress down, and you're coming back to me.
" I press my forehead against his, breathing him in. "And when you do, you owe me a lesson."
A rough exhale shakes his chest. Something between a laugh and a prayer.
"Yeah." His arms tighten, crushing me against him. "I owe you a lot of lessons."
The war waits outside the rusted door. In here, wrapped in a killer's arms, I've never been safer.