by Riley Ashby
Quinn didn’t make any noise upstairs for a long time. I walked outside with the dogs, did a little more work scrubbing Colby’s blood out of my drywall, and started some pasta for dinner. The entire time, I had no indication that there was even another person in the house. Why didn’t I put a camera in her bedroom? At least then I would know what she was doing. What if she fell asleep and started dreaming again? Or had she managed to hurt herself in some way?
But if she did fall asleep, she was able to wake up on her own, and eventually, the sound of water rushing through the pipes announced that she had decided to take a shower. It went on for thirty minutes, and I almost did go up to check to make sure she hadn’t found a way to hurt herself. But the water finally shut off, and there was silence once more
Maybe she wanted me to go upstairs and get her. Was that what she was waiting for? I didn’t think so. She’d been so sad when she came up from the basement, but it was layered with anger and frustration. How could I have pissed her off if I wasn’t even down there? It wasn’t fair. If she was angry, she should at least come talk to me. We only had each other right now. We’d gotten so close in the past twenty-four hours, and now she wanted to act like this? The food was getting cold. We were both hungry; she had to be. She’d been drenched in sweat when she came up for the brief few seconds that I saw her. It was time for us to talk, one way or another.
I was at her bedroom door before I realized I was moving. I didn’t even remember going up the stairs. When I raised my hand to knock, she opened the door before I could touch it.
“I’m surprised it took you this long,” she said. Her hair was still damp, and it left water stains on the shoulders of her oversized T-shirt. “I expected you to come in here, guns blazing, to drag me downstairs by my hair.”
She wasn’t glaring at me anymore, though she had an intensity in her eyes that I didn’t quite know how to handle. I leaned in, my cheek an inch from hers. “Don’t tempt me.”
Before she could respond, her stomach let out a long growl, and the serious look on her face disappeared as she dissolved into giggles. I couldn’t help smiling myself. I grabbed her around the waist, and she touched my cheek as I kissed her.
“Will you come downstairs and eat?”
“God, yes. I’m starving.”
Where before she’d been angry, she now seemed dressed in carelessness. She asked for wine, then drained one glass before I could even pour some myself, and was working her way through the second like it had offended her.
I tapped my finger on the side of the wineglass. “Are you sure you should be drinking that much?”
She laughed into the cup, breathing in the very aroma before taking another generous sip. “Why, are you going to take advantage of me?”
“Do you want me to?” Shit, that wasn’t what I was supposed to be acting. Show humanity, right? “I’ll wait for you to ask me.”
“Whatever. Do what you want. I can fend you off now.” She winked.
I had a feeling that was what she and Parker had been doing downstairs. What had Parker taught her in that short of time? Quinn was already proficient in basic self-defense. But Parker knew a lot of ways to kill a man, and maybe now Quinn knew one or two as well. “Did my sister spill all the beans about me?”
She snorted. “Your ‘sister’ didn’t tell me shit, except to say that I should ‘be patient’ and that this would all be over ‘soon.’” She made air quotes with her fingers to emphasize.
“But that didn’t make you feel any better.”
“What do you think?” She kept raising one eyebrow at me and turning her head to the side. I watched her throat as she swallowed another gulp of wine.
“I’m guessing no.”
She drained the glass and reached for the bottle again, but I pulled it out of her reach. “You’ve had enough.”
“I’m a hostage in the middle of nowhere, and I’m falling for the guy holding my life in his hands. Let me have another drink.”
I was so shocked I let her grab the bottle from me without protest. She really must be a lightweight, or was she trying to mess with me? She looked up at me as she set the nearly empty bottle back on the table.
“What, did I catch you off guard at that? Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to do this entire time, playing nice guy, letting me into the secret parts of your house ...” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Shove me against the wall, pull my clothes off, and try to fuck me in the hallway in the middle of the day?”
I took a large bite of food to buy myself some time to calm down. She didn’t need me pawing at her right now, but it was going to be hard if she was going to tease me with a dirty mouth. “Eat your food. You shouldn’t be drinking so much on an empty stomach.”
She did as I directed, one piece of rotini at a time. “I should think you would want to get me drunk. Show you a little gratitude.”
“Quinn.”
She paused, fork halfway to her mouth. “Yeah?”
“I don’t rape girls. Never have.”
She put down her fork and finished her wine, then pushed her plate aside. “I want to be angry with you. I’m actively trying to be.” She stood and walked around the table to me, and her steps didn’t wobble once. “But I’m not.”
I stayed facing the table so she wouldn’t see the growing bulge in my pants, but she pushed the table away rather than pull my chair to give herself room to step in front of me and crawled onto my lap.
There was no hiding anything now. She could feel it. And based on the way she was grinding and pressing herself into me, she wanted it as much as I did.
If I had any concerns that she would be angry about the previous night, they were gone now.
“Are you drunk?” I asked, right before she clasped my face between her hands and kissed me.
“Not as much as you think,” she said when she finally pulled away. “Not as much as I was that first night.”
She swallowed the last words as she kissed me again, soft lips gliding over mine with the taste of the wine she’d been drinking, deep red berries, and a hint of chocolate.
“I’m not a good man.” My hands acted of their own accord, seeking out every exposed patch of flesh. “I won’t be soft every time.”
“A cruel man wouldn’t have given me a book. A library.” She grabbed my neck with both her hands; her fingers barely touched at my nape. “You’ve been trying to hide from me.”
I couldn’t think with her hands in my hair and the heat of her pressed up against every part of me. I wouldn’t hide from her. She had to choose me for who I was.
“A good man would tell you to go upstairs.” I grabbed her hand and sucked one of her fingers into my mouth, swirling my tongue around it, tasting her flesh. “Close your door and lock it. Keep me out.”
“I think you’re the one who should go hiding right now. Considering I have you pinned to this chair.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“The right thing doesn’t matter anymore. You think I wouldn’t be doing this if we were at my house instead of here? If you’d actually taken me somewhere in the city instead of wherever we are now? You don’t think I’d still be coming apart for you?” She grabbed one of my hands and put it on her breast, and she kissed me. “You don’t think that you’d be touching me still?”
She sat up and pulled her shirt over her head. My self-control, already dangling from a string, snapped away completely.
“Fuck.”
Before she could even get her arms back around my neck, I was standing, holding her by the waist only long enough to throw off the contents of the table with the other hand before I laid her down on it and crawled on top of her.
“You’re killing me with this.”
“Good.” She pulled at my shirt as I kissed her neck, only stopping for her to pull it over my head. “I want to drive you half as crazy as you drive me.”
“You do that every damn day.” I pulled back to look at her breasts spill
ing out of her bra as she laid on the table. What was left of the wine bottle had spilled when I brushed it aside, and her hair was wet with it. “You’ll have to shower again.”
“Let’s go now.” She sat up and bit my nipple. “I want to taste you.”
“Not yet.” I unhooked her bra in the back and pulled it off, then pushed her back down. “Fuck, your tits are perfect.” This was my first time really seeing them, her fully topless in the light, spread out on the table instead of crammed into the back of my car or draped in the shadow of my bedroom. Her dusky nipples stood perky against her pale skin. They hardened further as I ran my hands over them, small pebbles pressing against my fingertips. She tried to sit up, but I put one hand around her throat, pressing her gently against the table while I sucked one of her breasts into my mouth.
“I dream about these tits at night.” I held her nipple between my teeth as I spoke, earning me a gasp as my jaw tightened and loosened with my words. “Before I met you.”
“I know.” She arched her back, pressing herself into my mouth, holding my neck with one hand as the other drifted down my chest to the hem of my jeans and finally dived beneath it. She palmed my erection through my boxers and scraped her nails against my thighs with maddening slowness.
“Let me see?”
It wasn’t hard to remember she hadn’t done this before. She was so eager, so exploratory with her touches.
“I guess that’s only fair.” I placed one last kiss between her breasts and stepped away, my hand around her neck guiding her up to sitting. Her blond hair was stained red at the tips from the wine and clung to her shoulders and back. Her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips as she stared, not at my face but at my hands as I undid the button of my jeans and pulled down the zipper.
“Come here,” I said. My voice was raspy; my tongue felt too big for my mouth. She stood as I dropped my jeans and boxers to the floor and kicked them away. I grabbed my dick in my hand and stroked it with a loose palm. I worried anything else would make me come all over her face before I even got to feel her mouth. “Are you ready to see it up close?” She nodded as she licked her lips, and one of her hands stroked her breast absently as if she wasn’t even aware of it. “Get on your knees.”
She bit her lip as she sank to the floor, never taking her eyes off my cock. Jesus, she was transfixed. I was already hard, but with her staring at me, the vein that ran along the underside pulsed and made me twitch. She put one hand on my groin, thumb curving along the underside and brushing my balls.
She looked up at me. “Tell me what to do.”
“Open your mouth. Stick your tongue out just a little.”
She obeyed, and I placed my hand over hers as I moved forward. A drop of precum appeared as I reached her mouth, and I pushed my cock down enough to touch her.
And then, on her own, she flicked the tip with her tongue.
I hissed. “I thought you wanted me to tell you what to do.”
“Sorry,” she whispered, but the words were distorted because she had to speak around me.
I shivered as her lips brushed my sensitive skin, wetting it with wine and saliva and spring forth more precum to drip onto her tongue. “Lick it.”
She started slow, running her tongue in circles around the tip and smacking her lips lightly. I kept one hand on her head, but she moved forward on her own, taking me millimeter by millimeter, applying her lips and her tongue to each new patch of skin with the same care as she took me deeper and deeper.
“You’re a fucking natural, baby. Don’t stop.”
With every advance, she closed her lips around me and sucked gently, then harder, longer, until I had to move my hand away because she reached my base. The entire time, she stared up at me, even when she gagged, and her eyes started weeping.
“I should tell you not to hurt yourself.” I held her head in place as I thrust deeper. “But I don’t care.” She gagged harder, face turning red until I finally pulled back enough for her to breathe.
She took one long breath and wiped her eyes, smearing tears across her face. “You’re mean.”
“Then stop.”
She smacked her lips. “Would you let me?”
“Hell no.”
And then she was on me again, but this time her hand grabbed my balls as she thrust my entire length in one stroke, letting me deeper down her throat until I could feel her swallow, just once, and then she pulled back again to gasp for breath.
“Goddamn.” I pulled her head back and leaned over to kiss her. “You don’t taste like me yet.”
“Let me fix it.” She licked my lips.
“Get back to work.”
I’d had blow jobs before, from more than enough women, but I couldn’t explain why this woman, who had never been with a man in any capacity before me, was suddenly the best head I’d ever gotten. Being inside her mouth was heaven—no, not quite, like being just outside. Her tongue ran over the vein on the bottom, and I cried out as I grabbed her hair.
“Fuck. Quinn.”
Her cheeks hollowed with the force of her suction.
“You keep doing that I’m gonna blow.”
“I want to taste it,” she whispered. She kissed me at my base, and then—fuck, and then she licked my balls, sucked each one into her mouth for the briefest second. “I want to make you weak.”
“You have,” I groaned, and when she closed her lips around me again, I came.
She pushed deeper onto me as I groaned and grabbed her hair. She squeaked just once as I hit the back of her throat.
“Swallow it all. Every drop.”
“Unhhh,” she groaned. Tears fell down her face, but she never looked away from me as she continued to suck, pulling me deeper than I could force myself, milking my balls until I felt empty, empty, drained of all liquid and pleasure and energy, and her mouth became too much for my sensitive flesh to handle. I yanked her off, and she gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth as white cum spilled past her lips.
“Don’t waste it,” I said.
She licked her hand and swallowed.
“There.” I grabbed her arms, pulling her to her feet, and kissed her. And now she finally tasted like me.
“I think …” She pulled back, gasping, and I kissed her nose, her cheeks, her neck. “I think we need to stop.”
I held her face and looked at her intently, brushing away the tears with my thumb. God, she looked wrecked, and I loved it. But I didn’t want her to back away from me again. “Are you feeling all right?”
She put her hand over mine. The temperature had dropped now that we were standing still, and she leaned against me for warmth, hard nipples pressing into my chest. “I am. Really. But we might have reached my limit.” She leaned against my chest and closed her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering against my skin. “It’s been a long day.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Let’s get clean.”
I pretended to study myself in the mirror while Gunner ran the hot water for the shower. It was encased in glass, not like he couldn’t see me, but at least it was fogged by the time he stepped under the flow. I swished my mouth briefly with mouthwash and finally took off my pants and underwear. Thank goodness I’d thought to leave the knife in my room; it wouldn’t have been good for him to discover it while I was sucking him off.
“Are you okay?”
I blinked and shook myself out of my thoughts. “Fine.”
“Come here, then.”
I took a deep breath and stepped into the shower behind him, but he spun right away and caught me up in his arms as he kissed me.
“Aw.” He frowned against my lips. “You rinsed me away.”
I giggled, I couldn’t help it. My nerves felt as raw as a razor’s edge. “I got self-conscious.”
“Don’t.” His fingers wove through my hair as he kissed me, his tongue charging past my lips into my mouth, invading me, caressing me. “I love the taste of me on you.”
I moaned into his mouth as he pushed me against the wall,
and I could feel that he was far from done with me. Despite my earlier hesitance, wetness scattered between my thighs again, and I was reminded that I still hadn’t had my own pleasure.
He groaned and pulled away as I was weighing whether to let him continue. “You’re not going to bed without coming, baby. But I promised to clean you up.” Before I could say anything, he pulled me under the spray. “Be still.”
I closed my eyes while he cleaned my body from head to toe. He worked shampoo through my hair, then conditioner, pulling free all the knots with his fingers. His hands slipped over my shoulders, then hips, and the inside of my thighs.
It was my second shower of the day, but the longer of the two. Earlier, I’d only stood under the water long enough to wet my hair. The water had grown cold by the time I got there because I spent over twenty minutes combing every inch of Gunner’s room. Running my hands along the edge of the bed, I checked underneath the mattress and along the baseboards, looking for something, anything that would give me a clue as to what the hell was going on. Gunner was still hiding something from me. Parker had meant to comfort me, but she only put me more on edge. This was more than a ransom kidnapping. Something else was going on, and I wanted to find out what.
But so far, I had come up with nothing. No papers with neatly written out plans or a cell phone full of damning voice mails.
Well, there was one thing.
A photo of me. Getting out of class on a Friday afternoon, I was smiling at the camera with a surprised look on my face.
I remembered because it was taken the day my parents had surprised me at school. They waited outside the building for my last class, despite the cold and wind, so eager to surprise me after I’d complained earlier in the day that I felt burned out. Dad had his camera ready and caught the moment I spotted them. We went out for dinner and a movie, and I forgot my stress for a few hours. The next time I went home for the weekend, the photo was hanging on the living room wall.
