by Julie Kriss
“Fuck,” he said again when he saw the cops. “I thought I’d have more time. Did they talk to you?”
“They asked me about you,” I said, still standing in the kitchen doorway, holding my forgotten bottle of beer. “I told them I didn’t know you.”
He was quiet.
“What did you do?” I said.
Still, I couldn’t see his features. He sat on the arm of my sofa, put his hands on his thighs, and bent slightly, as if thinking. “Someone talked,” he said to himself. “Not Westerberg. Not Danny, unless they scared him. Not Jam. It had to be Chaz. Or Gray.”
I shook my head, even though he wasn’t looking at me. None of that meant anything to me. My heart was in my throat. Now that he was here, big and looming in my small apartment, I realized how much danger I could be in. “Did you hurt someone?” I asked.
He raised his head. Then he stood, jerked the cord on my blinds so they shut over the window, and turned on the lamp next to my sofa. He came toward me, his face illuminated in the soft light, his features hard, his green eyes on me. I stood frozen in place as he came close and, to my surprise, cupped my jaw gently in his hands. “Listen,” he said, tilting my head back and looking into my eyes. “I didn’t hurt anyone. Do you understand?”
It was so unexpected that I couldn’t move for a moment. I felt like my spine was melting like wax. His fingers were lightly callused on the soft skin of my neck, his hands warm as the chill from outside wore off. “Yes,” I managed.
He looked at me for a long moment, but he did not let me go. “I’m a thief,” he said, and then he dropped his hands.
“What did you steal?” I asked as he turned away.
“TV’s,” he said, sitting on the arm of my sofa again. He rubbed a hand tiredly over his jaw, the sound rasping in the quiet. “Except the TV’s were hollow and packed full of OxyContin. That part was a surprise. That’s why the cops are crawling the place.”
I put my beer bottle down, unable to think of anything to say.
“I was the driver,” he went on. I drive, he’d told me in the car that night. “We dumped the Oxy, so it’s possible we’ll only be nailed for the TV’s. Unless someone talks. I walked here from the dump site. It took me nearly two hours.”
He was wearing jeans, work boots, a black windbreaker jacket that he hadn’t unzipped. He’d walked for hours, alone in the cold and damp. “What are you going to do?” I asked him.
He looked at me. “That’s up to you,” he said.
I knew what he was saying. I could turn him in. All I had to do was open my front door and shout, and it would be over in seconds. He wouldn’t stop me if I did that. He was saying that, too.
But he didn’t want me to.
I licked my bottom lip, thinking, watching him. He could be dangerous. He could be lying. He could hurt me. But he could have hurt me when I let him in the window to my kitchen, or when he had his hands on my neck. He could have hurt me when I got into his car—a stranger’s car—two nights ago. He could have hurt me in the corridor, in the parking lot. Anytime at all.
He watched me back, unmoving, waiting for me to decide.
“You can stay until they leave,” I said at last.
He didn’t move, just watched me, but something I couldn’t read crossed his gorgeous green eyes.
As soon as I said it, the air felt heavy. I was suddenly aware of his hands, braced against his thighs. The line of his back beneath the jacket. His mouth contrasted with the rough stubble on his cheeks and jaw. The rise and fall of his breathing.
“All right,” he said softly, still not moving. “What do you want in return?”
The question hung there. What did I want? So many things. I couldn’t even name half of them, not with him sitting there, his presence making my apartment—my life—look small. I licked my lip again. “What’s your last name?” I asked.
He blinked. “Wilder,” he replied. “What’s yours?”
“Maplethorpe,” I said, thinking Devon Wilder, Devon Wilder.
I waited for him to have a reaction to my name—most people did—but there wasn’t even a flicker of recognition. Not a big TV watcher, Devon Wilder, then. I asked my next question. “Why did the cop ask me about the Pure Gold strip club?”
Devon frowned for a minute, and then he seemed amused. “Did he ask if you work there?”
“Yes, he did.”
His green gaze moved down, over me, as if he could see through my clothes. “Fuck, what a stupid question,” he said softly.
My blood thrummed in my veins. It was a compliment—he was saying that I was sexier than any stripper. Somehow I always knew what the words between his words meant, as if I could read a secret code. “Why did he ask me about it?” I repeated. “Do you work there?” Do you have a girlfriend there?
“The man who hired me for this job spends a lot of time at Pure Gold,” Devon said. “You could say he uses it a little like an office. If you worked there, you’d probably be acquainted with him.”
“He uses a strip club as an office?”
He shrugged. “I don’t associate with very good people. I think you already figured that far.”
I made myself picture it. Devon at a strip club. Devon driving a getaway car with drug-filled TV’s in it. Dumping the load and walking back here in the damp, trying to stay one step ahead of the cops. This was him—this was what he was. And yet, he had given me honesty in reply to my questions. He didn’t lie or try to justify himself. He’d given me information that I could use against him with the police if I wanted to. If I wasn’t worth trusting.
And suddenly I realized something: this man—who he was, what he did, how he lived life—excited me. I had been a law-abiding citizen all my life, but now I felt a deep thrum inside me, a vibration that made my blood pound. I looked at Devon Wilder and I wanted everything from him. I wanted his secrets, his vitality, his complete lack of fear. I wanted to consume every inch of him with a fierceness that shook me.
“Take off your jacket,” I managed. “I’ll get you a beer.”
He didn’t move, but when I turned and walked into the kitchen I felt him behind me and heard his footsteps. I put my hand to the fridge door, but his hand moved past me in the dark, pushing the door closed again.
“Olivia,” he said.
I turned around, pressed back against the door by his body. He didn’t touch me, just framed me in his space, a dark shadow among the other dark shadows of the kitchen, looming over me, inescapable.
His free hand touched my face, his fingertips brushed my lips, and then he leaned in and kissed me.
He was soft and forceful, sliding my mouth open, his flavor heady with an edge of bitter. His tongue slid inside me and I moaned, which made him kiss me harder, pressing my head back against the fridge. I had never been kissed like this before—I had never felt anything like this before. In seconds I was drunk on it, pulling on him, letting him explore my mouth as I breathed him in. His stubble brushed the sensitized skin of my lip and I felt the sensation straight between my legs, as if he’d licked me there. When he broke off I was throbbing almost painfully, my underwear wet inside my jeans.
I looked at his face in the half-light from the window, trying to catch my breath. “Why me?” I asked him.
His fingertips brushed my lips again, but he didn’t hesitate. “Because I want to watch you come.”
My breath caught and I couldn’t speak.
“I wanted it the first time I saw you,” he said, low and rough, “right there in the parking lot. I wanted to watch you. Listen to the sounds you make. Feel you as I watch you. As you give in and let go.” He leaned in, brushed his mouth over the skin beneath my ear. “I swear to God, Olivia, before I have to go wherever I have to go, I’m going to make you come.”
Everything was burning—my skin, my blood. He moved his free hand to my throat, then trailed his fingertips down. He unzipped my sweatshirt and dragged his hand up beneath my t-shirt, cupping my breast in his warm palm. I heard th
e soft intake of his breath when he realized I wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Jesus,” he said softly, and he leaned in and kissed me again as he dropped his other hand from the fridge door and moved it up beneath my shirt with the first one, cupping my other breast. His hands were big and strong and callused against my skin, and I squirmed against him, pressing against his thigh.
He broke the kiss and licked the corner of my mouth.
“I want you,” I managed.
“You’re going to have me,” he said, his hands cupping my breasts a little tighter, almost squeezing. He still hadn’t even removed his jacket. He bit me gently on the side of my neck, the pleasure of the sting making me squirm again. “Any way you can take me,” he said. “I want your sexy fucking mouth on me. Your cunt. Your ass. Does that scare you?”
“No,” I breathed.
“Good,” he replied softly. “That’s good. I want to do every dirty fucking thing to you, but I don’t have time.”
I slid my right hand up beneath my shirt, over his left arm, his left wrist, and rested my fingertips on the back of his hand as it squeezed my breast, where I knew his tattoo was. “Is that what this means?” I asked.
No Time. I didn’t have to see the tattoo again to know what it said. He paused for a second, and then beneath my fingers his hand moved, his thumb brushing hard over my nipple, making me gasp.
“It describes our situation,” he said.
He was right, completely right, and suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore, having him so close to me with so many clothes on. I took my hand from his and unzipped his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders. He dropped his hands from my breasts—reluctantly, I thought—to shrug it off, then braced against the fridge again, boxing me in.
He would have done something, made the first move, but I didn’t let him. I had been watching him for two months—watching him move, watching how easy he was in his skin, watching the fascinating lines of his body and his face. Drawing them. I was on fire for him, and I trailed my hands down his shirt to his belt, pulling it from the buckle.
“Fuck,” he said softly.
The belt undone, I opened the buttons of his jeans and pushed them down over his hips, along with the black boxer briefs he wore. His hands were already moving to the back of my neck as I sank to my knees.
I took only the briefest of seconds to admire his cock—thick, hard, and ready for me—in the half-light before I put the head in my mouth and ran my tongue over it, tasting him. Salty and warm. His hands moved from the back of my neck up into my hair, twisting it, urging me. I slid my mouth further down him, then a little further again. I heard him give a sharp exhale.
“Suck me deeper,” he said. “All the way.”
I braced my palms on his jean-clad thighs and obeyed, relaxing my mouth, taking him in. His hands were harsh in my hair, guiding me, but he didn’t push me too fast. I felt the tautness of the restraint in his grip, his arms, his whole body. I ran my tongue over him and pressed harder, feeling him touch the back of my throat.
This was nothing like I had ever done before. I should not be here. I should not have let Devon Wilder, a criminal I barely knew, into my apartment after dark. I should not have hidden him from the cops and helped him break the law. And I definitely should not be on my knees in front of him, his cock in my mouth. But I was. And I loved it.
I took him deep again and again, his fingers tight in my hair, his hips rocking gently against me. He took everything I gave him, a man who had no shame in taking pleasure. I was almost shaking with arousal, the ache in my knees and my jaw only adding to it, to the pulse pounding inside me, the wild need. I wanted to touch myself, and I couldn’t. And part of me wanted him to touch me instead.
He groaned low and one hand left my hair to grip the fridge again, bracing himself. He was close. “Swallow when I come,” he commanded me, not breaking his rhythm.
And a second later he came, pressed deep inside me, his hips flexing, his body still. I obeyed him and swallowed, letting his come slide down my throat, and then I licked the rest off him as he hissed in a breath.
He pulled me up and pushed me back against the fridge, his body pressing fully against mine, his hips against me. He was breathing hard. I couldn’t help it; I leaned up and ran my tongue over the pulse in his throat, feeling it pound hotly beneath his skin. It was delicious. He was delicious.
He let me do it, still and silent, let me lick him. Then he grabbed my hips and stepped back, pulling me with him.
“All right,” he said. “Now the fun begins.”
Eight
Olivia
Devon walked me to the bedroom, which wasn’t far in my tiny apartment, and pushed me gently back on the bed. I tore off my sweatshirt, my t-shirt, so I was topless in front of him, and then I stopped, because I was watching.
He kicked off his shoes, pulled off his shirt. His jeans were still undone, and in one smooth motion he pushed them off, leaving him naked. He was big, packed with muscle, and I had the urge to turn on my bedside lamp so I could see all of him—but when I saw how the shadows played over his skin, hiding and revealing and hiding again, I decided I wanted to explore him with touch instead.
Still standing, he leaned over me, his big hands working the button on my jeans. I could see the sharp shadows beneath his jaw, down the line of his neck, his gaze moving over my bare breasts, my belly. There was a smattering of soft dark hair, flat against his skin, dusting his chest and his stomach. On his left arm, the No Time tattoo continued its intricate design of lines up his wrist and forearm, through the dark hair lining the top of his arm and the delicate skin on the underside. It was beautiful, masculine, mysterious, and the only tattoo I could see. His cock was semi-hard. He just came in my mouth, I reminded myself, and the thought made my back squeeze, my hips lift off the bed urgently as he pulled off my jeans and my underwear.
He tossed my clothes aside and spread my legs. He didn’t touch me, didn’t ready me. He just bent, lowered his head, and sucked.
I cried out and arched off the bed into his mouth. The heat was like a lightning strike, his tongue like an invasion and the only thing I wanted, the thing I’d been missing, at the same time. He licked down into me, then up around my clit, and I heard myself softly chanting fuck, fuck as I slid my hands into his hair. It was soft, just long enough to cover my fingers so they disappeared and I held on. One big hand moved up to cover my hip, pressing me down into the bed, stilling my squirming and bucking. The other hand moved between my legs, his fingers sliding inside me, pressing me as he continued to lick. This wasn’t going to take long—minutes, maybe. Seconds. Time disappeared as wave after wave slipped over and through my body.
His finger slid out of me and down, back, into my ass, so wet with my juices that his fingertip slid in easily, and I let out a breath as the pleasure built higher. His mouth stayed on me, over my clit, and when it swiped over me—ungentle, almost harsh—I came, biting back the sound in my throat, my hands twisting in his hair.
I should have been embarrassed. This wasn’t anything like me. I hadn’t had sex at all in over a year and a half—and who had it been with? Some guy I’d gone on a few dates with because I was lonely? I couldn’t remember names, faces, anything. How did something like that measure up with Devon Wilder sliding his finger out of me, putting his tattooed hand on my other hip, and kissing his way up past my belly button, his shoulders rippling in the dim light? I dropped my hands from his hair and watched him half in awe, catching my breath.
He licked slowly up the underside of one breast and raised his head just enough to look into my eyes. “That’s what it looks like,” he said, his voice low.
I want to watch you come, he’d said.
I gulped a breath, still watching him.
“I’m clean,” he rasped. “You on the pill?”
Oh, God. Oh, God. “Yes,” I whispered.
“Then spread your legs,” he said, “and watch.”
He pulled himself up, over me, a
nd pushed inside me in one smooth thrust.
It was better than anything. Anything. I grabbed his shoulders, feeling the muscles moving beneath his skin, and dug my fingers in. He was thick, fully hard again, and I bent my knees by reflex, drawing them up to take him in deeper. He lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me, letting me taste myself mixed with the taste of his tongue.
He broke the kiss, his stubble brushing my sensitized skin, and said again, “Watch, Olivia. Watch me fuck you.”
I did. I looked down between us. He was propped up on his elbows, and I could see us in the shadows, his stomach arching over mine, his hips moving between my spread thighs. He bent his head, running his mouth along my neck, and I shivered, never taking my eyes from us. It was raw, dirty, and still I couldn’t look away.
His lips brushed my ear. “You like it,” he said. “My cock in you.”
“Yes,” I said, licking my lips. The pleasure was building again, intense so soon after my last orgasm. “I love it.” The words sounded good, and I had to say them again. “I love it.”
He gave me a low sound of appreciation. “Good,” he said, his voice growing tight. “Keep watching. And watch yourself come.”
And I watched—everything. The way my breasts bounced when he fucked me harder. The way the muscles bunched beneath his skin as he moved over me. The way his cock slid in and out of me, deep and sure. It was wild, purely pornographic, and my breath hitched, higher and higher. He ground against me, brushing my clit, and I came again, my fingers digging into his shoulders. He dropped his mouth to the spot where my neck met my shoulder and bit me as he came.
When he’d barely finished, he cupped my face and kissed me, but this time it was gentle. His mouth moved softly on mine, brushing my lips. I loosened my fingers from their grip on his shoulders and kissed him back, my body relaxing, my head spinning. It was surprising, how gently he kissed me, how gently he moved out of me and off of me. He rested on his side on the bed beside me, his hand moving down over my breast in a motion that could only be called possessive. Then he was still.
