Breathe the Sky

by Michelle Hazen

  She laughed softly at his surprise, her face bright with a smile. “I like it, doing that to you. Didn’t used to. I think I do now.”

  Her hand wrapped around the length of him, her palm smooth with lube, and he thrust up into her grip, his head falling back on the bed. Hellfire, he wanted to fuck like a demon right now. Wasn’t wholly sure he could trust himself with her in such a state. He started to sweat as she rolled the condom down over his sensitive tip, then slicked it with more lube sliding beneath her tight grip.

  “You gotta stop me. If I go too hard or deep or—you gotta,” he insisted.

  “I will.”

  “And don’t pretend, if—”

  “I won’t.”

  “And we can stop if—”

  This time she quieted his words with a gentle kiss. “I don’t want to stop.”

  She took his dick inside. She had to wiggle to get it to slide, and then she held tremblingly still while he pushed up, slow so it’d be smooth on her, biting the shit out of the inside of his cheek to keep control over himself. He tasted blood and his head whirled until he remembered to breathe, and he’d never felt so good all at once in his entire born life.

  Her breath was stuttering a little, too, and he stopped only halfway in. The part of his shaft left out in the cold throbbed and ached, and he tried his level best to ignore it. “You all right?”

  “I, uh . . .” She laughed breathlessly, her eyes closed and face flushed. “My ex wasn’t quite so, um, fulfilling in that area. This is . . . very nice.”

  His dick fisted harder, and blood rushed hot in his chest. It shouldn’t feel so good, to hear that her husband had a tiny prick. It probably made him a caveman, but he enjoyed the idea that her ex hadn’t filled her up the way he could. His hands flexed on her hips and he arched, gave her more.

  “I can take it all,” she whispered achingly. “I like it deep.” Her lashes fluttered as she sank down onto him, her small breasts trembling with the movement.

  Deep.

  The word roared silently in his chest, like it was some kind of key twisting in him, unlocking things he probably shouldn’t be thinking. Definitely shouldn’t be feeling.

  Her legs flexed as she rose up. “Last time, you let me do what felt good to me.” She braced her hands on his shoulders, her eyes soft on his face. “I want to know what it’s like when you do what feels good to you. Please? I’ll stop you if it’s uncomfortable.”

  He grunted out a breath, his heart beating so wildly he could barely hear her over it. She wouldn’t ask for that if she knew how far gone he already was. He could barely stay still right now. Slow was totally beyond him, and the pressing, arching exploration she’d done? Utterly impossible.

  Gritting his teeth until he was sure they’d crack, he flexed his hips. Just enough to rub the head of his cock deeper in her. Even that was enough to make blackness shudder in his vision.

  “Mmm,” she hummed. “Can you . . . a little harder?”

  Fuck. Hell. Jesus’s sandblasted sandals.

  He rolled her onto her back and withdrew from her body, hovering for a stretched second before he powered back in. She gasped, knees coming up and toes curling hard into the blankets, nails biting the scars in his shoulders. He did it again, living on her stuttered gasps. Going faster when her head fell back.

  He couldn’t find one thing so far that he liked that she didn’t seem to like even more. Her knee had jerked up toward her chest with his last movement, so he wrapped his arm around it. His next slide in went even deeper, like they fit better this way, and he nearly whimpered.

  Mari’s fingers clenched, trembling where she gripped his arms and urged him on, and the leash on his control went ragged. He forgot about the long, smooth strokes to satisfy her the way her ex couldn’t. Instead, he jerked against her in tiny hard jabs so he didn’t have to leave her body but could still find that spot that locked him in deep. The one that wrung low noises from her throat and made tingles run down his spine and gather heat in the muscles of his legs.

  How could she feel this wet through a condom? How could she manage to grip and fist his cock the way she was, and damn, was she doing that on purpose, or was that just what happened when she liked the way he was fucking on her?

  He was breathing through his gritted teeth now, every beat of his heart like a shout as he powered into her just to feel her clench and wriggle and ah God—

  It took him without warning, like a waterslide gone steep so everything just dropped out from underneath him and pleasure burst through his body. More and more and more of it, so he might have yelled, startled by the force of it. By how long it went, picking him back up when he thought he didn’t have any more left.

  He fell unevenly onto his elbows, the hard motel mattress biting into them. “You—” he gasped out. “Did you?”

  Mari blushed pink and glanced away as she nodded, the smile tugging on her lips so damn cute that he had to kiss her even though he couldn’t half catch his breath yet.

  “Ungh,” he said, not sure what word that was supposed to have been, but pretty fucking pleased about his entire state of affairs at the moment. He pulled out of her and flopped over onto his back, lungs heaving to catch up.

  She curled into his side, and it took him a lot longer than it probably should have to finally get his heart rate to settle down, and then to work up the motivation to get rid of the condom. But when he came back, she settled right onto his shoulder like he’d never left, and kissed his collarbone, making his heart jump.

  “I like the truck,” she said, “but I think I like the bed even more.”

  He gave her a squeeze, not bothering to hide his grin.

  After a while, he couldn’t help but start to think about the situation, and he must have tensed up or something, because her head tipped back.

  “What is it?”

  “Just . . . why do you think it works so much better with you?” He gestured at himself. “Ain’t no smaller.”

  She chuckled. “Um, I think with you, I’m usually excited enough that things are just . . . easier.”

  He considered that. He usually hadn’t messed around as much before sex with his few other women. They hadn’t asked for it, and he’d been afraid to try anything they didn’t initiate. But with Mari, he knew she liked him using his fingers on her, and the more she wriggled and panted, the longer he wanted to do it. It just seemed to make things more awkward, with other women, when he’d attempted different ways of touching them.

  “Didn’t know what I was doing before,” he admitted. “Didn’t know how to ask. It’s easier, with you. To know what you like.”

  Now she really did laugh. “It seems as if I like everything, when you’re doing it. So yeah, it’s probably easier.” She kissed his jaw. “Don’t be shy to ask about things, if you’re curious. I might blush, but I’ll also probably have a really good time answering your question.”

  He grunted, rubbing slow circles on her lower back because it cuddled her farther into him and made her get all relaxed feeling.

  “I like that you’re comfortable with me,” she whispered into his neck.

  “I, uh—” He hugged her naked body against his side, his throat scratchy all of a sudden. “Same thing. Like that, too. Want you to be okay.”

  What he wanted was for her to always be where she was right now: her little breasts pressed against his ribs, her skin warm against his while both their bodies hummed with the pleasure of what they’d just done. Far away from all those other filthy workers and their eyes following her. Far away from Junior, and anything hurtful he might say to her when Jack wasn’t there to put a stop to it. He wanted her to stay with him, pretty much forever.

  He wasn’t entirely sure how to make that happen, but he was thinking on it. A lot.

  28

  Bad News

  “Would you please sit down?”


  “I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have to like it. It’s my job, and that’s that.”

  Mari tried to keep the sigh out of her voice as Jack kept pacing her motel room. He hadn’t been able to settle all evening. Actually, all week since she’d been moved off his crew, though it had gotten worse every night. Couldn’t focus on working on her truck, or his own. Just got in her way trying to help with dinner.

  He’d finally given up pretending it was an accident that they ate dinner together every night. Now, he paid for the food and she cooked while he caught up on all the long-overdue maintenance on her truck, then they cleaned up together. It had felt like a pretty good routine, until this week.

  “It ain’t about you just doing your regular job. I was in the office this week when Rod got the stack of tickets Junior’s been racking up all week. He blew his fuck—his damn lid. And your name was signed at the bottom of every one.”

  He paced past where she sat on her motel bed, the agitation roiling through him too clearly for him to stop moving.

  “Besides, I don’t like you all alone with them. They ain’t a good crew.”

  “They’re lazy. That doesn’t make them dangerous.” She folded her arms and gave him a knowing smile. “And I’m hardly alone, am I?”

  She’d been reassigned to Rod Jr.’s crew on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Gideon had shown up to their morning meeting as well.

  “Wyatt got very concerned about being overstaffed on his crew,” Gideon had told her.

  She’d laughed and rolled her eyes, but then at lunch, Gideon had come to sit with her in the scanty shade of her truck.

  “You don’t have to babysit me through lunch, too, you know?”

  “You’re better company than they are.” He had ducked his chin and given her a wide-eyed look. “Please don’t make me go back. As soon as they find out I’m gay, they all assume I’ll be overcome with lust for their balding, sweaty selves. Watch me like I’m a lion just itching to pounce.”

  She had choked on her laugh. “Okay, okay, I wouldn’t subject you to that. But seriously, what is Jack doing, sending you over here? I worked on construction crews for a lot of seasons before I started on his team. It’s hardly my first day alone with workers.”

  Gideon had taken a thoughtful bite of his sandwich. “It’s going to really put his crew behind schedule, being a man down. Rod keeps track of their production like it’s the Super Bowl scoreboard.”

  “That’s what I’m saying! Rod’s going to get him in trouble for transferring you, and for what?”

  Gideon had given her another slow, sidelong look. “I’ve never seen Jack care about anything more than he cares about building fast. Or keeping his job.”

  Thinking back on that conversation, she hunched her shoulders, prickling all over with emotions she didn’t want to be having. It was simple vanity, enjoying a thought like that. And terrible, too, because what if Jack really did lose his job because he was trying to help her? For all that she’d argued with him, she didn’t want to be transferred, either.

  It wasn’t like she enjoyed going to war with Junior’s crew about every environmental regulation. Not like she enjoyed being called “little lady” and constantly correcting how every conversation seemed to come back to something about her body. Not like she enjoyed how they laughed like it was a joke when she told them to knock it off, and treated her like she was uptight for not laughing, too. Or how they wouldn’t actually shut up unless Gideon went after them for it.

  Not like she didn’t see the shadow of a bruise not quite hidden by the edge of Gideon’s beard, or the way he didn’t have a single friend on his new crew. Her fault. Her fault, too, probably, the guy who’d had to leave work to see the medic because he’d “tripped” over behind some pallets.

  “It’s a construction site,” she told Jack now. “No better or worse than any of the others I’ve been on.”

  He threw her a black look. “I know how it is. Worked on them all my life. I don’t like you dealing with it on a crew where the foreman ain’t got your back.”

  She tried a different tack. “C’mon, though. You have to admit it’s funny. Rod only put me on that crew because he assumed I was fixing your crew’s environmental compliance record to look perfect. He hoped I’d do the same for his son, and instead I’m writing tickets so fast I ought to be doing it on hemp paper.”

  Jack shoved both hands back through his hair, the movement too quick now that he didn’t have long hair to yank at.

  “Get it?” she teased gently. “Because hemp grows faster, and that way I wouldn’t use any trees? Never mind. Anyway, if Junior spent as much time building towers as he did breaking laws, we’d be out of a job already.” A little pang twisted through her. They were nearly out of a job as it was, and it seemed like she would spend the last two weeks of it seeing Jack only in the evenings.

  “Ain’t funny. You think he’s going to just pay those fines and that’ll be it?” His eyes blazed. “You didn’t see how Rod got when he saw those tickets. I’m talking to Marcus tomorrow. Get you moved off that crew.”

  Her back straightened so hard she wasn’t even touching the pillows behind her anymore. “What, so you think I’m making those violations up? Any other bio would be writing him up as much as I am, so moving me isn’t going to get Junior out of trouble or calm Rod down.”

  At least any bio would if they didn’t fold to all the intimidation he tried when he wanted them to let it go “just this once.” It was Junior’s favorite phrase, “just this once,” and it always reminded her of Rajni’s “one and done.” Which was why she hadn’t let him off on a single ticket.

  “Rod’s gonna blame you for the trouble, not his boy.” Jack shook his head. “Spread out the blame some, let the other bios make him mad.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You hate me being over there at all. It’s not just about Rod, or you wouldn’t have sent Gideon. He couldn’t do a thing for me against Rod unless it came to a fistfight, and that doesn’t seem like Rod’s style.”

  Why had she been flattered that Jack sent Gideon to watch over her? Brad used to have people watching her, too. Everybody from his buddy who worked at their grocery store to their accountant. If she so much as nodded at another man on the street, he’d hear about it. And here she was getting all starry-eyed over a guy who was basically doing the same thing.

  “Gideon can keep the other workers from grabbing at you. Junior sure isn’t going to stop them.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of slapping a hand away if it comes to that, which it usually doesn’t. You’ve worked on enough construction sites that you should know it’s mostly talk.”

  “Rod’s not mostly talk. He’s deep down mean, not to mention sneaky as hell. And you’re right, Gideon wouldn’t be able to slow him down worth shit. Rod’s been covering up for that son of his forever, but with biologists watching all the time, he can’t hide all the slipups before management sees them. When it comes to a head, I promise you it ain’t his kid he’s going to blame for the problem. I don’t want you being his goddamn scapegoat.”

  She knew he was having a hard time with the change in crew assignments, and she hadn’t meant to get upset, but now her temper was rising in spite of herself. “So what, just because we’re dating now, you’re never going to let me out of your sight?”

  She’d been through this before. Protective became paranoid, and that turned into the kind of forced isolation she was still trying to break back out of.

  “You ain’t—” Jack blasted out, then stopped himself and dropped his voice. Even quieter, it lost none of his intensity. “You ain’t listening. You don’t know what he’s like.”

  “What’s he going to do? Suspend me? He can’t. Not without Marcus’s permission, and Marcus knows exactly what that joker is like.” She shot off the bed, unable to sit still anymore. “I’m not just going to stay in wha
tever tiny box you decide is safe, Jack. You’re my boyfriend, not my father. I lived for months—God, years now—alone in a truck in a desert. I think I can probably take care of myself without your help, thank you very much.”

  His eyes flared and he scowled furiously. “Fine. You do whatever you damn well please. What do I know, anyhow?”

  “Oh, thank you so much for your permission!” She could barely hear Jack, because Brad’s words filled her whole memory.

  You think you can just flaunt yourself all over town, doing whatever you please?

  That had been when she wore a tank top in August, and Brad made sure she couldn’t wear anything but long sleeves again for weeks.

  Mari’s voice was quiet when she spoke again, quivering along with the tears that blurred the edges of her vision. “I don’t need a man to tell me what to do, and I will never be treated like a child in my own life ever again. I thought things were going to be different with you, but God knows I’ve been wrong before.”

  He cursed, his hands knotting into fists that made the muscles stand out all along his arms. “Mari, please don’t cry. Listen, I fucked this all up—”

  “Yes, you did.” She cut him off, thinking of chapter seven, “Apologizing.” They were always sorry after. But it sure didn’t mean they wouldn’t do the same thing over again if you gave them the chance. “I think you’d better go.”

  He stood very, very still, his eyes flicking between her face and the floor like he had to see her but couldn’t quite stand to hold her gaze. But when she stormed over and threw the door open, he went without her having to ask him again.

  And the worst thing about it, worse than the click of the closing door or the gaping silence from his side of the wall, worse than the sobs that racked her after he left . . . the worst thing was that she didn’t think either of them were surprised that everything that seemed so perfect had fallen apart after all. For people like them, it always did.