Instead of stomping on his foot or biting his lip or kneeing him in the groin—I kissed him back. Not just that, I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“Once wasn’t enough, Sloane. You know it as well as I do.”
Like a bucket of ice water had been poured over me, the moment was ruined. I slid my hands from his neck to his chest and pushed with all my might. “Stop this,” I spat.
His eyes opened wide. “I keep saying and doing the wrong thing when all I want to do is get it right.”
“I can’t be that person, Tackle. I can’t scratch whenever you have an itch.” I reached out and hit the emergency button again, and the elevator began moving.
“What makes you think that’s what I want?”
I walked out when the door opened. “You said you wanted to explain, not ask me questions.”
Tackle didn’t speak again until we were inside the apartment. I pulled out a chair at the dining table and sat down. He did the same.
“That day on the staircase—I guess it was Christmas—you said something about me having a girlfriend. I don’t.”
“I don’t care one way or the other,” I lied.
“I know your brother told you there was a woman—”
“Like I said…”
He put his hand on the edge of my chair and turned it so we were sitting knee to knee. “You wanna know who I was talking about when I told your brother there was a woman who I wasn’t sure felt the same way I did?”
“Absolutely not.” I felt tears threatening. If I let myself cry now, it would be the most humiliating moment of my life.
“You.”
“You’re such a liar.” I got up from the chair. Tackle stood too and grabbed my wrist.
“Look at me.” He pulled me close to him, cupped my cheek with his palm, and stared into my eyes. “You, Sloane.”
God, I wanted to believe him. Dare I?
“When that plane landed, there was a part of me that wished it was only you waiting for us. I even wished Halo wasn’t with me. All I wanted to do was hold you in my arms and tell you…”
“Tell me what?”
“I’ve wanted you for years, Sloane. Even before I took you to your prom.”
“You did that as a favor to Knox.”
He shook his head. “Nope. Your mom called him and asked him to come home and take you. I told him I was going home anyway and volunteered to do it.”
I scrunched my eyes. “What did Knox say?”
“He thanked me.”
“Did he suspect anything?”
Tackle shook his head a second time.
I took a step back and folded my arms. “If he found out…”
“I know.”
“So, why? Is this some sick ‘you want me because you can’t have me’ thing?”
“No, Sloane.”
I raised a brow. I’d buy that maybe I was the woman he’d been talking about. I’d also buy that he’d wanted me for a long time. I’d certainly wanted him long before my prom. But that didn’t change the fact that Tackle was betraying my brother. We both were, but it felt worse to me that he was.
“We can’t. Never again. Knox will never forgive us.”
“Can you really walk away that easily?”
“Don’t,” I said when he took a step closer to me.
“You don’t want me, Sloane? You don’t want to feel me deep inside you? Feel my lips on you? My tongue?”
When his tone changed from needy to demanding, I wanted him so much more.
“Admit it.”
How bad would it be if I just had sex with him one more time? The damage had already been done. Whether it happened once, twice, or ten times, Knox would still flip out. “I do,” I whispered.
Tackle put one arm around me and kissed my neck. “From the time I woke up in the hospital in Columbia until our plane landed in DC, I’ve thought about this.” He snaked his hand under my sweater and covered my breast with it. “And then you left before I could get a second taste.”
He kissed me, hard and deep. His fingers toyed with my nipple. That alone made me feel like I was about to come out of my skin. My breasts were so sensitive I could barely stand his touch while, at the same time, every pinch was like a zinger straight to my clit.
“Do you know how I felt when I came out of the bathroom and you were gone?”
I shook my head, unable to think, let alone speak. When he pulled my sweater up, I lifted my arms so he could take it off. When he reached around, unfastened my bra, and removed it with his teeth, I swooned.
“You’re not leaving again, Sloane. If I have to, I’ll tie you to the bed until I’ve had my fill of you.” He picked me up and carried me to the bedroom just like he had the first time. He kissed me, and I kissed him back—also in the same way we had that day.
He set me on the mattress, removed my boots, my socks, and finally, my pants. I lay there in nothing but my panties, watching him undress. Before taking off his jeans, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of condoms.
“Pretty sure of yourself,” I muttered.
Tackle dropped his pants and crawled onto the bed. “When it comes to you, Sloane, the last thing I am is sure of myself.” He spread my legs and moved between them. “In fact, the only two things I’m sure of are how much I want you and how determined I am to get what I want.”
When he moved my panties to the side and brought his mouth to my pussy, I jolted. I gripped his hair when he licked through my folds, and he looked up at me. “Sloane, has anyone done to you what I’m doing now?”
I raised my head to look at him and shook it.
“Good.”
He took his time, swirling his tongue around and around my clit. When he sucked the hard little nub into his mouth, lightly nipping it with his teeth, then thrust two long fingers inside me and curled them, I went off like a rocket. “Oh my God,” I screamed, unable to stop spasming as he drew out my orgasm until I thought I’d black out from pure ecstasy. My body shook with pleasure, not having realized anything could feel this wicked good.
He slowed his movements as though he was gently bringing me back down to earth. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d known Tackle would be an amazing lover. Maybe that was part of the reason I’d waited.
He moved up my body and brought his mouth to mine. I tried to turn my head away, but he held me still. “I want you to taste yourself on me, Sloane.”
His kiss was gentle at first, but then became more heated as moans continued to emanate from my chest.
“I’m going to teach you to bring me pleasure with your mouth too, but not yet. First, I need to fuck you, Sloane. Do you want that?”
I nodded.
“Say it.”
“I want it.”
“Say the words like you did in the parking garage.”
My cheeks flushed in embarrassment.
“Say it, Sloane,” he repeated.
“I want you to fuck me, Tackle.”
“How?”
“Fuck me hard.”
He grabbed a condom, rolled it on, and knelt between my spread legs. “I could spend eternity inside your pussy. My tongue…my fingers…my cock.” As he spoke the final two words, he positioned himself at my entrance and thrust into me. “God, you’re so tight.” He grabbed my legs and held them together so my ankles rested on his shoulder. When he pushed into me again, his eyes rolled back in his head.
I couldn’t control all the sounds that seemed to come from somewhere deep in my throat of their own volition. When I put my hand over my mouth to stifle them, Tackle grabbed my wrist and moved it away. “I want to hear you.”
A second orgasm overtook me, and this time, my cries turned into screams when he rubbed my clit and pounded into me.
Tackle pulled out, flipped me onto my stomach, and lifted me up on my knees. His hands gripped my waist as he continued his body’s assault on mine.
“Come with me, Sloane,” he growled. “I want to feel it.”
As if I had any control over the orgasms he brought me to, but my body listened and did as he asked. His fingertips dug into my skin as he thrust one more time. I could feel him pulsing inside me.
He stilled and rolled us both to our sides, pulling my back flush with his front after he removed the condom. He moved my sweat-drenched hair and kissed the side of my face. “There’s so much we need to talk about.”
Like I’d had no control over my orgasms, I couldn’t stop my body from stiffening with his words.
10
Tackle
“Not now,” I said. “Now, we rest.”
My guess was the one question she wouldn’t want to answer was whether I was the first man she’d been with. Was there even a reason I needed to know? Other than how much it had turned me on when she confirmed that my mouth was the first to bring pleasure to her pussy. With that one thought, my cock stiffened.
I tightened my grip around her waist, moved her hair from her neck, and licked the moisture that coated her skin. Chill bumps covered her arms, and she shuddered.
“I really should—”
“Whatever you’re about to say, Sloane, the answer is no.”
“But I have to—”
“Do you? Really? Or are you just attempting to run like you did the first time?”
“You don’t even know what I’m trying to say.”
“Don’t I? Are you about to lie and tell me you have to go back to work?”
“How do you know I’d be lying?”
“In the same way I knew every other time you lied in all the time I’ve known you.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”
“Tell me the truth, Sloane. Do you have to go into work this late in the day on a Friday?”
“No.”
“Since you were so sweet to tell me the truth, you deserve a reward.” I shifted away from her and trailed kisses from her neck and all the way down her spine. When I made it to the dimples right above her ass, I reached between her legs and fingered the sweet pussy I was quickly growing addicted to. “I’m going to ask you another question, Sloane. If you tell me the truth, the rewards will keep right on coming.”
“Can you just keep doing what you’re doing and stop talking?”
I moved my hand away and rested it on her tummy.
“No,” she groaned.
“No answers, no rewards.”
“You’re mean.”
“But I can be very, very nice.”
She huffed but then arched when I trailed my fingers back down to her pussy. “Ready?” I asked.
“For?”
“There’s something I want to know, and I don’t want you to lie to me.”
“God, Tackle, just ask me, for fuck’s sake.”
I swatted her bottom, and she yelped. “I only want you to say that word when you’re telling me how hard you want me to fuck you.”
“Did you really just spank me?”
“First of all, that ‘love tap’ could hardly constitute a spanking.” I put my fingers between her legs. “Second, tell me you didn’t like it.”
Her cheeks turned a bright shade of red, she looked away, and I moved my hand from her pussy to her hip.
“You’re mean,” she repeated, sticking her lower lip out.
“What I am is a man who wants to give you all the pleasure you can handle. I ask very little in return.”
“What?”
“Do I want in return?”
She nodded.
“First, no matter what I ask, you answer truthfully.”
“What else?”
“When we’re together like this, naked, whatever I tell you to do, you do.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
I put my hand back between her legs and fingered her clit. “Then, you don’t get this.”
She was close; I could feel it. So when I took my hand away again, she cried out. “Stop teasing me.”
“Do you promise to be honest with me?”
She looked over her shoulder and scowled at me. “Is this the method you use to get all women to talk?”
I massaged her ass where I’d swatted her earlier. “Don’t ever say anything like that again. There aren’t women; there’s just you.”
“Right.”
That got her another swat.
She reached behind and rubbed her bottom, which brought the back of her hand in contact with my steel-hard cock. “Was there a question?” she muttered.
I put my mouth on her nape and sucked her flesh until I left a mark. “Was I your first, Sloane?” I tweaked her nipple when she didn’t answer right away.
“Ouch!” She pushed my hand away. “That hurts.”
“Answer me, Sloane.”
“Yes!” she cried. “You were my first.”
“Do you know how hard that makes me? How happy it makes me?”
“Where’s my reward?” she whined and moved my hand away from her breast.
I grabbed another condom, rolled it on as fast as I could, and thrust into her from behind.
Within seconds, she was writhing against me and screaming my name along with God’s. Oh, yeah, sex with Sloane was going to be all that I’d imagined and more. That she hadn’t been with any other man before me made me want to pound my chest and roar.
“Where would you like to have dinner?”
Sloane’s eyes met mine in the bathroom mirror. “Don’t you have…things to do?” She turned around and tried to scoot by me, but I blocked her escape.
“Italian?”
“Tackle, please move.”
“Not until you answer me.”
“I’m not hungry.”
I leveled my gaze at her and raised one eyebrow.
“Okay, jeez, I’m a little hungry.” She stared into my eyes when we both heard my phone ringing in the other room. “Don’t you need to get that?”
“Nope.”
“What if it’s work related?”
“It isn’t.”
“Maybe it’s that woman.”
I let her pass, and she went into the bedroom. I followed and watched as she got dressed and refused to make eye contact with me.
“Sloane, look at me.”
She put her hands on her hips. “What?”
“Earlier, you said you couldn’t be the person who scratched when I have an itch.”
“That’s right.”
“Which means you want more.”
“I never said that.”
I walked over, grasped both her wrists, and put her hands on my hips. “How about we just start with a meal? Have dinner together?”
“Knox—”
“Is in New York City.”
“How would he feel if he knew?”
I released her hands and sat down on the bed. “I’ve asked you to be honest with me, so I will answer truthfully. He wouldn’t like it.”
“And yet, you’re still here. Still asking me to have dinner with you.”
“I can’t help it, Sloane. The idea that I could’ve died…it changed how I feel about things. How I think about them.”
She sat beside me. “I get that.”
“On our way back from Columbia, your brother asked if surviving the plane crash made me want to settle down, have kids, that kind of stuff.”
“And?”
“I can’t say I’ll ever be ready to have kids. I mean, you know as well as I do how hard it is on the families with what I do for a living.”
“You’re going back to it?”
I shrugged. “It’s too early for me to say for certain. My dad basically told me his business is mine if I want to take it over.”
“But?”
“There was a reason I didn’t go into construction and contracting to begin with. I don’t know if I see myself doing that for the rest of my life either.”
My phone rang again, and for the second time, I ignored it. I wished I’d thought to go turn it off before I followed Sloane in here.
“She�
�s persistent,” she mumbled.
“It’s probably a spam call.”
“Right.” She smirked. “Back to what we were talking about. I didn’t expect Knox to take on another mission so soon.”
“I didn’t either.”
“You said that almost dying changed how you feel about things. What things?”
“Putting things off until tomorrow. Denying myself.” I put my fingers on her chin and turned her head to look at me. “You.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“How about I tell you over dinner?”
“You aren’t going to relent, are you?”
I shook my head. “I’m starving.”
Sloane smiled. “I am too.”
“There’s a Moroccan place not too far from here.”
“I know it. They started out with just a food truck. Now, it’s one of the most popular restaurants in the city.”
The place, located in the public market, was packed, but it didn’t take us long to order and find a seat. Sloane got beet salad and a sweet lamb bowl while I chose the burnt-ends brisket bowl with couscous and roasted vegetables. We shared a cup of the best harissa soup I’d ever had while we waited for our entrées.
“I promised to tell you how the crash made me look at things differently.”
Sloane’s eyes met mine. “You did.”
“I can’t be passive anymore. I can’t wait for things to happen. I mean, I can, but when I do, I get frustrated. I can’t tell you how many times I found myself angry at not being able to talk to you. In the past, I would’ve let it go. Months could have gone by, and eventually, I would’ve given up.”
“I’m sorry.”
I reached over and ran my fingertip over the back of her hand. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. It’s all on me. What I can and can’t allow myself to do anymore.”
“Your life has been in danger before. How was this different?”
“The inevitability. In the past, there was always the chance that I’d overcome whatever obstacle was in front of me. It might mean I’d kill before I was killed or that I was rescued, like in Somalia. The plane going down, though, I didn’t think there was any chance we’d survive. The fact that we did, felt like a crazy miracle.”
Sloane moved her hand out from under mine and looked off in the distance. “What do you want from me, Tackle?”
Tackle (K19 Security Solutions) Page 6
