Walk Through Fire

by Kristen Ashley

  There was no Millie.

  There was nothing and also nothing to go on. It was clear everyone in her life (except Kellie) had moved on, found husbands, lovers, had kids.

  But not Millie.

  He moved around the room and her master bathroom, opening doors, stepping into her closet.

  She was a woman, she had shit, a lot of it.

  But it was nothing a million other women wouldn’t have, clothes, shoes, bags, scarves, makeup, jewelry. Even the vibrator in her nightstand was normal and lonely. No other toys. Not that they’d had that shit back in the day, but they’d been young. He hadn’t introduced it to their play even if he’d been thinking about it just to give her something new he knew she’d get off on since she got off on everything he did.

  Lost in his thoughts, he wandered down the hall, looking at the walls.

  There were pictures of her cuddling her niece and nephew, smiling huge, looking happy at the same time disturbingly sad. Standing with her folks by a Christmas tree.

  But not with her crew at a concert. Hanging at a party or a bar. Off on vacation. Goofing around.

  He was feeling uneasy when he went through her living room, opening the drawers on her coffee table, exposing nothing but emery boards, tucked away remotes, pens and paper.

  He was more uneasy going through her kitchen.

  An appropriate amount of wine bottles in her rack. A bottle of vodka in her freezer, mostly full. A very good bottle of tequila and an excellent bottle of scotch in her pantry, the tequila not even opened, the scotch half drunk.

  But not much food. There was stuff but it looked like enough for a day or two of consumption. It wasn’t stocked for a person who liked to cook and Millie had loved to cook. She’d also loved to bake. She was adventurous with it, skilled because her momma taught her well, and successful. They’d had spices. All different kinds of oils. Everything you could possibly need at the ready to make chocolate chip cookies, brownies, cake.

  In her kitchen now, there were odds and ends, but nothing like what they’d had.

  He stood at the back door, his eyes drifting through the space, his mind consumed with uncomfortable thoughts that Millie had not only been a ghost plaguing him the past twenty years.

  She’d lived like one.

  She didn’t exist.

  Not even in her own fucking house.

  Making a decision, he pulled out his phone and made his call.

  “Yo,” Shirleen answered.

  “Dig deeper,” High ordered.

  “Say what?” she asked.

  “Millie,” he replied. “Get Brody on her and you tell that guy he says one fuckin’ word, I’ll break all his fingers.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Nothin’,” he answered. “And that ain’t no blow-off,” he shared. “Just did a walkthrough of her house and not even sure she’s been breathin’ the past twenty years.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means what I said,” High returned. “Nothin’. There’s nothin’ to the bitch.”

  There was a moment of silence before, “High, gotta ask again, you know what you’re doin’?”

  “I know what I’m doin’, just don’t know what I’m gettin’.”

  “Now what does that mean?” Shirleen asked.

  “If I knew, I’d say.” He turned and looked out the window of the back door, and Christ, windows in both doors. She was asking to get fucked. His eyes hit the studio. “Got shit to do, Shirleen. Call me when you got somethin’.”

  “Am I gonna find something?”

  More than he wanted to admit, he sure as fuck hoped so.

  “No one can live twenty years this quiet, Shirleen,” he told her. “You’ll find something. Just wanna know what it is.”

  “And we’re talkin’…?” she prompted.

  It pained him to start it the way he did, but he had to.

  “Who she’s fucked. If she’s lived with anyone. What she spends her money on. Where she goes. What vacations she’s taken. Piece together her life for twenty years and give that to me. Yeah?”

  “Yeah, High.”

  “Right, later.”

  “Later, and, High?”

  “What?” he asked, hand on the door handle.

  “You say you know what you’re doin’. Just sayin’, I sure hope you do.”

  He had no response to that except a repeated, but firmer, “Later.”

  “Later.”

  He shoved the phone in his pocket, walked out, used his tools to lock up behind him, and then moved across the courtyard to the studio.

  It was time to get to phase two of today’s mission and he was looking forward to it.

  He didn’t even pause before he opened the door and stepped in. Eyes to her sitting behind her desk, he closed the door behind him and locked it.

  High didn’t pay a lot of mind to the office. What he saw was like the house—pretty, feminine, but professional.

  And again perfect.

  What he saw of her was the same. Tricked out for work even if she was doing it in a little house behind her home.

  He also saw her eyes were big and her lips were parted.

  “Up,” he ordered.

  She did not stand up.

  She asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Up, Millie, and panties down.”

  At that, her mouth dropped open but he saw the flush hit her cheeks.

  Then he saw her eyes flare before they narrowed.

  “Are you crazy?” she asked.

  He moved into the space and repeated, “Up, babe.”

  “You are crazy,” she whispered, still eyeing him.

  He rounded her desk and she swiveled her chair to face him as he did, stubbornly not rising and still glaring at him.

  “Not gonna say it again,” he told her.

  “This is my place of work,” she snapped.

  “And?” he asked, stopping close so she had to tip her head back deep to keep his eyes, something she did.

  “And you can’t stroll into my place of work and order me around,” she bit out.

  “Can, seein’ as I just did. Now, up, Millie. As I’m right here, I’ll take off your panties.”

  Again her eyes got round, her cheeks got pinker, but her gaze got angrier.

  “You’re not to be believed,” she hissed. “I have work. I have things to do. One of which is needing to leave in ten minutes to meet a client at the florist but I have three emails I have to reply to before I can do that.”

  “They’ll have to wait.”

  She squinted up at him, even more pissed off, before she ordered, “Get out.”

  He put his hands on his hips. “Millie, get up.”

  She pushed her chair away, gaining a foot, leaned back, and crossed her arms on her chest.

  “Okay, we’ve got this bizarre game going on. You know I’m in. But there need to be rules,” she declared.

  He shook his head. “No rules.”

  “I have a mortgage, High,” she told him sharply.

  Fuck, why did he hate it when she called him High? It wasn’t the name given to him, but it was still his goddamned name.

  He ignored his reaction to that and replied, “You’re worried about your work, you best get up so I can fuck you and do it fast.”

  And he’d give her that.

  He knew this was a low play but he also didn’t give a fuck. He’d make any play he deemed necessary, especially if it meant burying his cock inside her, hearing her pant, and feeling her clutch him in all the ways she did that while he was doing it. And he was already hard thinking about it, looking down at her in her frilly blouse, tight skirt, and high heels.

  But if she had things to do, he’d take what he wanted fast so she wasn’t too late doing them.

  “God, you’re infuriating,” she snapped.

  “Score one for me,” he returned. “Now, up.”

  “Fuck you, High,” she shot back. “And get the fuck out.”

>   He took a step toward her and stopped her from pushing back farther by leaning in, hands to the arms of her chair, holding it stationary, face in her face.

  “Gonna fuck you on your desk,” he whispered. “Gonna do it fast and hard and you’re gonna come like you come for me, loud. Now quit fuckin’ around and get the fuck up or I’m gonna put you where I want you so I can get on with takin’ what I want from you.”

  He knew he had her seeing the heat in her eyes, feeling her breath come faster, noting her tits moving up and down quick with her breaths as she fought the feeling.

  But her lips declared, “That is not gonna happen.”

  Then she cried out when he made it happen, lifting her clean out of her seat with one arm, twisting, using his other arm to sweep off whatever was on her desk and planting her ass-first on it.

  He leaned in, taking her to her back, and she helped out by breathing, “High,” which meant her mouth was open when he kissed her.

  She didn’t fight this time. She didn’t twist away. She didn’t push at him.

  She accepted his tongue with a moan.

  She’d been fighting the feeling.

  And she’d lost.

  Fuck yeah.

  He ran a hand from her knee up, taking her skirt with it, then feeling his dick throb when he encountered the lace top of a thigh-high.

  Feeling that, he knew it was time to quit fucking around.

  So he did.

  Tearing his mouth from hers, he watched as her eyelids lowered and a puff of breath escaped her lips when he used both hands to yank up her skirt.

  She immediately locked onto his hips with both thighs.

  She wanted this.

  Panting for it.

  Literally.

  He twisted to see her leg in her thigh-high clasped against his jeans at his hip and the sight was such a turn-on, he had to fight against grinding his hard crotch between her legs.

  Fuck, now he had to fuck her more than he’d had to fuck her.

  Immediately.

  He plunged a hand in, pushing aside the gusset of her panties.

  The soaked gusset of her panties.

  And Millie needed to be fucked.

  Immediately.

  “High,” she whispered, that throbbing through his dick, too, as she rubbed her wet pussy against his hand and started shoving up his shirt with her fingers.

  “You want it?” he asked, toying with her wet as he went after his belt and fly.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “Hard?”

  “Yes. Hurry.”

  To give her something, he started finger-fucking her.

  She pressed into his fingers and arched her neck even as she begged. “Your cock, baby. Hurry.”

  He pulled his cock free, slid his fingers from her wet, held her panties aside, positioned, and drove deep.

  Christ.

  Magnificent.

  Her fingers curled into his shirt under his jacket, yanked up uncontrollably, then she set her nails into the flesh of his back and dragged down.

  High grunted against the gratification of that as he thrust into her sleek, feeling her knees come up so he could drive deeper and she could get more.

  When she got it, she raked her nails back up and that felt so fucking phenomenal, he groaned, burying himself to the root and grinding.

  When he didn’t stop and go back to fucking her, she righted her head and begged, “Move.”

  He wanted more of that wet.

  But there was another score he was after.

  “You gonna give it all?” he asked.

  No hesitation. “Yes, High.”

  “Gonna take it, baby,” he warned.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  He kept grinding. “Gonna play with this body.”

  Her breaths started coming hard as she shifted her hips to try to rub up and down his cock and her nails dug into his back.

  “No rules, Millie.”

  “No rules,” she gasped, desperate, swinging her calves in, trying to find purchase.

  He had her.

  And he totally fucking didn’t.

  “Am I even here?” he sneered. “Or am I just dick?”

  And again, like last night, thinking he had her before she’d turned the tables on him, she did it again.

  She opened her eyes, stared fixed into his, and replied, “You’re always here, Logan. Even when you were gone. But since you’re here and you got what you wanted,” she lifted her head, putting her lips to his and scoring his back with her nails as she finished, “stop fucking around and take it.”

  Powerless to do anything else, he thrust his tongue in her mouth and took it.

  It didn’t take her long to give it all.

  When she did, he let go and gave it all.

  He was nibbling her lips and using her pussy to milk his cock after they’d both found it when she drew her hands out of his shirt and unclasped her legs from around his back.

  He lifted his head and stared down at her.

  In her pretty brown eyes, sex and fear.

  Fuck yeah, he got what he was after. All of it.

  He didn’t smile, even if he wanted to.

  She moved her gaze to his ear, mumbling, “I have to go.”

  He pulled out and shoved a hand between them. He shifted her panties back in place, then tucked his dick in his jeans before he pulled her up and set her on her feet, pinning her to the desk so she had it and him to support her. He kept her there, her eyes to his shoulder, one of her hands to the desk behind her, not touching him, as he did up his jeans and she used her other hand to yank down her skirt.

  She was closing down but it didn’t matter.

  He got what he wanted.

  “No rules, Millie,” he reiterated, like a warning.

  “I need to clean up,” she told his shoulder.

  He lifted a fist to her jaw and gently forced her eyes to him.

  “No rules,” he stated.

  “I got that, High,” she replied, a thread of defeat in her tone that, fuck it all, he did not like.

  “You can end this, you give it up,” he reminded her. “Tell me what the fuck you want so I can say no and we both can move on.”

  Determination stole into her gaze as she replied, “You don’t get this but I don’t want anything. And this will end, High, when I finally convince you of that.”

  He dipped closer. “Got my hand between your legs, you were soaked for me, Millie.”

  “Is that a surprise?” she returned.

  “For a woman who wants nothin’ from me, yeah,” he answered.

  She scored another hit when she whispered, “You’re beautiful.”

  Jesus.

  She did not just say that like she meant it.

  He stared down at her, the words still ringing in his ears.

  Fuck him, she did.

  “Mill—” he started to growl.

  She cut him off, her tone stronger, “And you’re good at it. You were always good at it. So again, is that a surprise?”

  “You want me gone, you’re not gonna pant and beg for it,” he informed her.

  “I want you gone but if you’re gonna give it until I can get you gone, it’s that good, I’m gonna take it,” she stated, and finally touched him only to lift a hand, put it to his chest, and put pressure on. “Now, move back. I’m already late. I don’t need to be later.”

  Sensing he was going to get nothing more out of this, but having gotten what he wanted anyway, High stepped back.

  She quickly moved away from him, toward a door he saw led to a bathroom.

  He watched her do it, eyes to her ass, and doing that he decided he was going to go for more and he didn’t care how late she was.

  So he told her back, “It wasn’t lost on you, what you did to me.”

  She turned and he saw her cheeks still flushed from sex, but the rest of her face was pale and her eyes were guarded.

  “’Preciate the orgasms, Millie,” he continued. “B
ut cannot get a lock on how any woman could do that to a man, and no matter it’s ten days or twenty years, come back for more. Release me. Tell me your fuckin’ game. If it isn’t as twisted as the last one, you need to get off, I’ll give that to you until I find better.”

  The guard went down as anger flashed. “Well, thanks, High. What a sweet offer.”

  He lost patience. “Millie, ain’t dickin’ around.”

  Then he braced when her expression changed again. It was fast, the suffering that slashed through it before she hid it. But it didn’t leave her and he knew it because it colored her tone.

  “You’re released.”

  He searched her expression.

  Fuck, she meant that.

  He felt his shoulders constrict.

  “Just like that?” he asked.

  “I made a mistake,” she said quietly. “A big one, as it turned out. But it’s been made. There’s no rectifying it.”

  “The mistake?” he pushed.

  “Coming to see you,” she told him.

  Jesus, were they getting somewhere?

  “And you did that because…?” he prompted.

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Fucking shit.

  More games.

  “Millie, this is the fuckin’ game I been talkin’ about,” he clipped.

  She flinched, not a communication of discomfort or pain, one of frustration.

  But he again didn’t give a fuck.

  She was frustrated?

  He was too and the woman had started this bullshit.

  “Christ, if you’d just spit it out, we’d be done with this,” he reminded her.

  She locked eyes with him. “Release me.”

  “Jesus, Millie—”

  “You’re coming to me,” she pointed out. “Stop it. Release me.”

  He threw an arm out to indicate the desk and the shit he swept all over the floor and asked, “Gonna be hard for you to convince me that isn’t the goal you wanna achieve, wrap me up tight in that wet pussy of yours and play with me however you want. I know that game, caught up in it before, so I also know you’re good at it.”

  She attempted to instigate another score.

  “It’s almost impossible to believe, looking at you, knowing who you are, knowing who you were, and listening to you speak to me like that.”

  But that was taking it too far.

  And High was not a man who allowed that shit.

  Not anymore.