by Maria Luis
His blue eyes darkened. “We don’t need the Basement for you to feel like you’re pushed to the edge. All you need is me.”
He said it so casually, so easily, and as he twisted his body to climb out of the SUV, I scrambled to pull up my pants. Didn’t even bother to slip the brass button through its hole.
I was out of the car in seconds, slamming the door shut behind me, lengthening my stride to the front door to cut the distance. Logically, I understood that I needed to be talking to him about Ambideaux’s invitation—about the ultimatum Nat herself had given me—but Lincoln never failed to make me lose sight of everything but him.
And as he’d put it, if I wanted something, then I needed to take it.
I chose to take him, putting everything else on the backburner, even if only for a few hours.
He keyed open the door. Pushed it wide. Ushered me inside with a hand to the small of my back. Quickly, I skimmed the space: a living room that opened to what had to be the kitchen through a doorway.
Lincoln’s hand slid from the base of my spine up to the space between my shoulder blades. “Go sit on the couch.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
I swept forward, stepping around a small side table, and took a seat in the center of the sectional. Immediately I reached down to kick off my shoes, tossing them off to the right as Lincoln lowered himself to the single chair opposite the wraparound.
“I feel like you’re a little far away.” I motioned to the space between us, then tacked on, “You’re big, Sergeant, but not that big.”
His mouth twitched at my innuendo, but he otherwise didn’t outwardly react.
Instead, he settled in to his seat, legs spread wide in that masculine way that seemed to be part of a guy’s genetic makeup. His forearms landed on the armrests, like he was seated on a throne.
“The Basement caters to everyone,” he murmured. “No matter what kink you’ve got, they’ll take real good care of you. It’s the reason they’ve got a waitlist a mile long.”
I swallowed, hard. “You got a kink I should know about, Sergeant?”
He smiled, just a little. “I like to be in control.”
“Right.” I bobbed my head in a nod. “I was thinking more along the lines of . . . like whips or chains or something.”
“Is that what you want? To be whipped?”
I rolled the image over in my head. Discarded it on second thought. “No. I’m sure it’s . . . fun. But I just—”
“It’s not for you.”
“No.”
“I spent a good amount of time at the Basement, back when I was too young to do anything more than sit and watch.” He reached down, grasped the hem of his shirt, and pulled it up and over his head. It was the first time I’d had the opportunity to see his upper body in broad daylight, and it was . . .
Brutally savage.
Both the power that existed in his heavily corded muscles and the tattoos that were inked in his skin.
No, I thought as I stared at him, he was beautiful.
With his scars and his tattoos, he looked like a man who’d been through hell and come out the other side. And when he spoke, his voice a rough timbre, everything in me strung tight with desire.
“Kinks often reflect what a person has suffered in their past life. A man who has never had the opportunity to speak his truth, for example, might find that he likes to wear something during sex that limits his vocals.”
Like Zak Benson.
I opened my mouth, prepared to mention that exactly, but Lincoln rolled on, his gaze impossibly astute. “I’d say that goes for you, too.”
“What?”
“My hand around your neck, sweetheart. Years of keeping your secrets and never telling a soul.” He rose, then. Came around the backside of the sectional until he was there, behind me, his arms wrapping like bands around my middle as he bent over the back of the couch. “You have no fucking idea how wet you get the second my fingers touch you here.”
The pads of his fingertips brushed the underside of my jaw.
My core tightened, and I hated that I was so damn transparent.
“Not everything is about whips or chains,” he husked, those fingers of his coursing down, over my chest, down past my belly, until they were resting on the waistband of my jeans. My breath caught when he silently encouraged me to strip off the denim.
They were gone in a heartbeat. Kicked off to the side.
And his hand was pushing me gently forward, until I was seated on the very edge of the seat cushion.
I twisted my head to look back at him. “Lincoln?”
My eyes went wide as I realized he’d shucked his pants, too. He was fully erect, fully naked, and I was fully in lust. Limber like an athlete, he jumped the back of the couch and dropped into the space behind me.
Reached forward to clasp me at the hips and pull me back into him.
Oh, God.
Despite the thin fabric of my shirt, I could feel his cock like a brand against my back. Could feel the heat radiating from his skin as his arms wound around me, keeping me in close.
I was surrounded by him.
His heat.
His power.
He grazed my earlobe with his tongue, sending shivers firing down my limbs.
“Should we see how wet you are?” he teased.
“Yes.”
Chuckling, he pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “Go ahead.”
I swallowed, hard. “What?”
“Take what you want, Avery.” Clasping my hand in his, he set it on my inner thigh. “I’ll give you what you want . . . but I want to watch you first.”
Oh, God.
My heart thudded in my chest, so hard that I was surprised we didn’t hear it. It was one thing to touch myself at the Basement, when I wasn’t alone in doing so. Another thing entirely to do it on my own.
Butterflies fluttered to life in my belly. I flexed my hand under his, then brought it to the apex of my thighs.
“Brave girl.” His hot breath rustled my hair and I felt him harden even more against my back.
I wanted to be that brave girl, the way I was in everything else in life, but never here. Never with a man. Letting my head fall back onto the hard planes of his chest, I stared down at my hand as if it was someone else’s but not my own.
Those fingers curled, the middle seeking my clit. It was swollen to the touch—and I was on edge. The slight brush of my finger sent my toes digging into the carpet and my free hand went to Lincoln’s thigh, where my nails carved half-moons into his flesh.
“Fuck, yes,” he growled behind me.
The clear-cut lust in his voice powered me on. I dipped my finger, sliding it along my slit, tracing my entrance. My core tightened, and I brought my thumb up to circle my clit as I teased my pussy.
There was something heady about playing for him this way, like I owned his pleasure, dictated its ebbs and flows. Lincoln Asher was a man who enjoyed being in control—but what happened when he lost it?
A grin flickered along my lips, and I tossed my head back in retaliation. I’d give him what he wanted, but it’d be on my terms. Not his.
“Oh, my God,” I moaned, slipping a finger inside, curling it just right so that when I cried out, it was all too real. Putting on a show for Lincoln just might be the best sort of performance I’d ever attended—literally.
Releasing his leg, I skimmed my palm up my belly to my left breast. Tweaked the nipple over my shirt. Fingers thrusting down below, I hiked up my left leg and laid it over his, spreading myself wide.
“Christ,” he grunted, his hands landing on my hips. “Don’t stop.”
I didn’t.
Pulling my fingers from my pussy, I spread that wetness over my swollen clit. Rubbed in incessant little circles until my vision blurred and I was gasping for relief. Relief that Lincoln was determined to hold off, as though punishing himself just as much as he was punishing me.
He shifted me forward, his hard-on slipping between my ass cheeks.
It was a shock, the girth of him, the heat of his cock there.
All words fled my brain. My hand left my pussy to land on his knee. Using him as leverage, I lifted and fell, needing the pressure of his cock even though he wasn’t inside me.
I wanted him to lose control, and I wouldn’t stop until he did.
Turning around, I straddled his hips and sank my weight down on his body. Wrapped a hand behind me as I circled my fingers around his erection and rubbed the crown along my slit. Up I went, grazing his cock with nothing but the tantalizing hint of what was to come. Down I came, the crown teasing me, rubbing up against my clit and making my legs twitch.
It was seduction in its finest form, and Lincoln’s blue eyes were wild.
His chest rose and fell with short breaths, and his fingers curled into the cheeks of my ass. “Holy fuck,” he grunted harshly, “I need a condom. Avery, I need—”
I leaned in with a short kiss to his mouth. And then I said, “I think you can suffer a little longer, Sergeant.”
If his gaze had been wild before, it was not even close to now.
He launched off the couch, me in his arms, bridal-style.
“I’m calling the shots on this one.” His nostrils flared as he kicked open what had to be his bedroom door before dropping me on the bed. “I’m in charge.”
My fingers dipped back between my legs again after I stripped off my shirt, and sure enough, his blue eyes tracked the path of my hand like a starved man. “No,” I said, “I think it’s safe to say that I am.”
His big body stilled like he was cataloguing what I’d said.
And then he moved into action, and I didn’t stand a chance.
My ass was in the air, my hands pinned to my sides, my face planted into the sheets. I heard the crinkle of foil and then a drawer slamming shut so hard that I was pretty sure he’d knocked over the bedside table.
The blunt head of his cock aligned with my entrance.
“You’ll come when I let you come.” His palm smoothed out over my lower back, keeping me in position. “Do you understand? If I want to hold off your orgasm until you’re crying you’re so desperate for relief, I will.”
I turned my head, nose rustling with the cotton, and taunted, “Sounds like you might have to prove you’re not a five-minute man.”
His hand came down on my right cheek. It was pleasure and pain, all mixed into one, and my skin felt aflame as he pulled back and did it again. I bit back a cry, clamping down on my bottom teeth, as I fisted the sheets and held myself back from begging for more.
I wanted Lincoln as everything that he was: rough, wild, dominating.
I shoved my butt back against him, silently daring him to do his worst.
He thrust inside me a moment later, and I knew then that he hadn’t given me his worst, but only his best. And he backed my theory up when he pulled out and buried himself to the hilt.
Oh.
My.
God.
I muffled my cry in the sheets, unable to stop myself from thrusting backward to meet him. I craved him like no other. Wanted him like no other. And then he was dragging his hand down my back, making me arch my spine like a cat lazing in the sun. His palm slid over one cheek and I prepared myself for the sting, for the want, for the way my core squeezed in excitement and anticipation and desire.
His hand never connected with my ass, not the way I’d expected it to. Instead, he spread my cheeks wide, and—
I swallowed. Fisted the sheets.
His thumb circled the puckered rim of my ass, and I didn’t know whether to beg for more or run in the opposite direction.
But his cock kept hitting me at just the right spot and the pressure—oh, God, the pressure—of his thumb felt insanely good. He circled there, just like he’d do to my clit, and I moaned so loud I was sure they’d hear it in the townhouse one over.
“Your pussy is mine,” Lincoln growled, “your ass is mine.”
I cried out at the alternating pressures of his surging cock and the soft brush of his thumb. Struggled to gather my breath when I edged out, “You’re at three minutes, Sergeant. A-almost there.”
I was almost there.
I was spiraling in an abyss I’d never known existed, addicted to the feel of him dominating my body like he truly owned my pleasure. Dictated it, just like he ordered about all the cops in his unit.
Pleasure swept over me, my hair falling across my face, my sensitive breasts rubbing up against the sheets.
The pressure grew, his strokes more insistent, his thumb dipping down so that I felt him along my slit as his cock continued to power into me. And then the pressure at my ass was there again, heavier.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Lincoln reached around, his free hand going to my clit, circling with two of his fingers. Stringing me so tight that I felt him everywhere, heard his deep groans and the way he said my name like I’d been made for him.
Like he’d been made for me.
Another circle of his fingers at my clit, another thrust of his hips, and I came, shaking so hard that there was nothing I could do but enjoy the ride. My lids slammed shut, and I felt Lincoln tumble along after me, his pace quickening, his hands on my hips as he fucked me.
He came, groaning my name, tucking me under him as we accidentally rolled off the bed and onto the floor. I tossed my head back with a laugh, the base of my skull connecting with the side of the mattress.
Lincoln chuckled, his blue eyes on me. “Wasn’t quite the grand finale I was hoping for.”
Shamelessly, I looked down at his cock. “All I need to know is . . . if my pussy belongs to you and my ass belongs to you, do I get to own that?”
As though aware that he was up for discussion, Lincoln’s dick twitched. “All yours, sweetheart. He’s all yours.”
Stealing a big breath into my lungs, I watched him climb onto his knees and then move toward the small waste bin in the corner of the room.
“We made a mess.” I lazily kicked the drawers that had tipped out of the bedside table. “A total mess.” There was a deck of playing cards on the floor, a strip of condom packets, a bottle of Advil, and . . .
My heart stopped.
Shifting onto my knees, I leaned forward, my fingers grasping the bracelet that was jumbled in with the rest of everything else. I knew this bracelet. It’d belonged to me—once. Back before Momma died and I ran from the house. Back when I’d been happy.
“Lincoln.” My voice was raspy, and I cleared it. Ignored the ringing in my ears and tried again. “Lincoln, where did you get this?”
22
Lincoln
“Lincoln, where did you get this?”
I was fucked, didn’t matter which way I looked at it.
Lies tangled in my throat, each demanding their own chance to smooth over the situation and put everything back to rights.
Rights would be Avery and I in bed together, her tucked up against my side while I skimmed my hand up and down her frame and memorized every dip and curve.
Christ, I needed pants for this conversation.
With my dick still half hard, I scoured my bedroom floor for a stray pair—then moved swiftly toward my dressers and yanked the second drawer open. I threw a T-shirt back for Avery, then drew on a pair of sweatpants up my legs.
It’d have to do.
“Lincoln,” Avery said, her naturally throaty pitch elevating enough for me to know that she was trying to hold it together. That space in my chest—which I’d always assumed was empty and dead—gave a pitiful jump at the sound. “Where did you get that bracelet? Don’t lie. Please don’t lie.”
I wouldn’t lie.
But she wouldn’t like the truth either.
Hands on my hips, I faced her. Felt the strained look in her expression like a punch to the gut. If I were anyone but me, that look on her face would have brought me to my knees. They wavered now anyway when I stared into her hazel eyes and gave myself away: “From your family�
��s tomb.”
The words were like a sledgehammer to her knees.
They gave out without warning, and her ass hit the mattress a moment later. She didn’t pull the shirt on over her head—didn’t do anything but sit there, her chest rising and falling rhythmically, her bare toes curling into the carpet flooring like she was seconds away from bolting out of this room.
She was naked, exposed.
And, this time, I was the one responsible for the devastation that lined her features.
“I-I don’t understand,” she whispered hoarsely, the T-shirt tangling between her fingers as she fisted her hands in her lap. “Did you go there recently? After you found out who I was? Who I am?”
In ten seconds, maybe less, she would hate me.
I experienced my own slice of devastation, then. My fist came up to rub at my chest, directly over my heart where her number was tattooed. I wished . . . fuck, but I wished we’d been other people than who we were. That I’d met her at a restaurant or on a blind date or anywhere else but our true reality.
At the end of the day, though, this was our reality.
“I went there a week after they put your body to rest.”
Her pretty hazel eyes went wide, the color draining from her face. “No.”
It was all she said, and that dug the knife of guilt more deeply into my chest than if she’d asked me to repeat myself.
I was so sorry, so damn sorry, and seeing her gutted expression stripped my emotions raw. I was dangling, hanging from a precipice where I went from a man she thought she could trust to the enemy.
Now she knows what the rest of this city does about me.
I’d never been a good man. Never been a hero. I lived in the darkness and relied on violence to get my point across.
And I’d never hated myself more.
Knowing it would only make the situation worse, I tried to explain. My tongue felt swollen, though, and when I spoke, it was a jumbled, chaotic mess of shit. “The kid—the teenager—that Ambideaux ordered me to kill . . . there’s no good way for me to say this. I wish there was. I wish I was somebody else, and not the man who—”
“No.”
She launched from the bed, slipping my shirt over her head as she moved around me.
