by S. E. Harmon
Danny raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t.”
“I was out on the deck,” I said vaguely and waved a hand in that direction. “Just catching some air.”
“I saw.”
I gritted my teeth. “Well, why didn’t you come out and say something?”
His voice was dark when he spoke. “Because every time I’m within two feet of you, I want to fuck you senseless.” His expression was uncompromising. “And I think we could use a little space to think.”
He started to close the door, and I stuck my hand in the rapidly disappearing crack. “You said you needed time,” I growled. “Not space.”
“Same difference.”
When he fully opened the door, I could see he was in the middle of changing. He only had on a pair of faded, dark-wash jeans that barely hung onto his hips. He folded those giant, muscled arms, and I swallowed. I was no lightweight, but he could probably bend me like a twig if he wanted.
It didn’t feel like a really good time to tell him about Anna. Or anything else remotely ghostly in nature. But I didn’t feel right about holding it in one minute longer than I had to. “We need to talk,” I finally said. “About Anna.”
“Christ. I don’t want to talk about—” His throat worked. “Not… not now. Okay?”
I hesitated. He wasn’t saying no. Obviously if I had news about her, it was from the beyond, so he already knew what it was about. I guessed it really should be up to him about where and when.
I nodded slowly. “Okay. But we can’t ignore it forever.”
He drew in a shaky breath. “Fine. But when I say. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And if it’s never, then it’s never.”
“Okay.”
I turned, only to be stopped by a finger in my belt loop. “I said I didn’t want to talk. But I don’t want you to go either.”
The dark, husky words sent a jolt through my body that I felt clear to my cock. It would probably be wrong at that point to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus.” So I just lifted my shoulders and let them fall. “Make love to me, then.”
Danny shook his head slowly. “I don’t have that in me right now.”
I bit my lip, turned, and dislodged his finger from my belt loop. “Then fuck me.” I stared at him hard enough to make him know I was deadass serious. I dragged a parched tongue across suddenly dry lips. “Big, strong guy like you? You don’t have a fuck in you?”
He gathered the bottom of my shirt and pulled me closer to him. His mouth took mine in a deep, slow exploration that made an embarrassing whimper escape from my throat. He just tasted so good, like something sweet and chocolate and….
I pulled back a little and sent him a squinty-eyed glare. “You found my KitKats.”
“That I did,” he confirmed. He used his hold on my shirt to pull me back and worked it up and over my head. And then with one large, rough hand he palmed my stomach and sent goosebumps racing across my skin. Every part of me that could be hard was hard. Nipples and cock vied for which could get the hardest.
I still had enough presence of mind to come up with some sass. “If you can’t manage a simple fuck, just let me know.”
“Rain, generally when you’re in the cage, you stop poking the bear.”
His teeth on my unusually sensitive nipples dragged the breath from my body in a stuttering hiss. He gave one of them a thorough lick and then pulled back. We both watched it pebble and grow achingly hard, and Danny swiped his thumb across it every few seconds. I would’ve sworn my nipples weren’t that sensitive, but when his forefinger joined the thumb to pinch down, I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out in pleasure.
“Enough teasing, Irish.” I sank my teeth into his neck in retaliation—not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to make him stiffen and swear. “Now take off your clothes and fuck me.”
I think we both beat the world record for getting undressed. Granted, we weren’t wearing all that much clothing, but it was still impressive. I shucked my underwear like there was fire licking at my heels, only to find him still tangled up in his boxers.
I left him to deal with that and rifled through his nightstand drawer for lube and condoms. It was only a moment before I made a triumphant little noise and then a groan as I spotted the small bottle. He had lube, yes. But it was cheap, and the bottle was tiny. I liked my lube like I liked my sheets—luxurious and silky. I made a note to buy some of my own as I held up the offending bottle with two fingers. “This you buy in travel size. But your shampoo, that will last you beyond the grave.”
He flushed. “Not much use for it.”
“And I thought I was deprived.” I shook my head and tossed a condom on the bed. After another moment of digging, I pulled out a plug. “Not even for this?”
I don’t think it was possible for him to get any redder. Jesus. Even with all the blood in his body creating a Tower of Pisa with his dick, there still seemed to be enough left for him to blush like a schoolgirl. He sent me a glare. “Are you trying to embarrass me to death?”
“More than the time I found you singing Mariah’s “Dreamlover” in the shower? No Irish, that was embarrassing.” I held up the plug. “This is what’s called useful.”
“You love ‘Dreamlover,’” he growled.
“Not in baritone, I don’t.”
I pushed down the comforter and climbed up on the sheets on my knees so he’d know how I wanted it. He crawled in behind me and fit us together, skin to skin. He explored my skin with his hands, slowly. He took his time and looked his fill. It was my time to turn red, but I held still under his avid scrutiny.
His fingers ghosted down my side, tracing my ankh tattoo. When he was done, he only had one question. “Why?”
I wasn’t surprised. He knew I didn’t take tattoos lightly. When we were together, he’d always teased me about being an unmarked canvas and wondered what it would take for me to get one. I’d maintained that when I found something important enough to ink on my skin, I would. “To remind me,” I finally said. “Of the important things.”
“It suits you.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
“I love your body, you know that?” His hand down my back made my spine dip automatically, as though I were a shameless cat. “So different from mine.”
“You mean fit and muscular?” I didn’t care if he insulted me as long as he kept moving his hands like that. “You should work on your pillow talk.”
“Toned and lean, you jackass.” His roving hands took the sting out of it. “Right up until this ass.”
He ran his hands over the object of his attention, and I shivered. He nipped at each of my asscheeks with his teeth, and he continued his ode to my behind. “Tight and perfectly round. Smooth and creamy white. Love it when that ass jiggles when I fuck you hard.” He suddenly lifted his gentle roving hand and smacked my right cheek, hard enough to make me hiss. “Love that a swat on your ass can leave a handprint that can stay for hours.”
He smacked my ass again, and I bit back a low moan. Didn’t know it was going to turn into a spanking session, but I was into it. “More,” I managed, voice barely a whisper.
Slap. I bit my lip again, hard, and tried not to make a sound. A drop of sweat slid down my spine, and I hung my head between my shoulders and waited. When it came, it was harder than I expected, and I couldn’t help the slight intake of breath. I grinned. Served me right for playing spanking games with the BBPD baseball team’s special pinch hitter.
The next slap finally made me cry out, and he rasped, “That’s good. Let me fucking hear you.”
Another slap landed on my reddened ass, and I yelled out. His filthy words and actions had my cock rock hard and leaking on the sheets. I fisted it once and smeared the precum up and down the shaft. When I let go and wiped my hand on the sheets, it bounced against my stomach. I guess I was into it. I stuck my ass out farther.
He groaned. “God. Don’t do that. I don’t think I’m even going to make it in.”
>
I reached back with both hands to pull those cheeks apart and further expose my hole to his riveted gaze. I wanted him to take that next step, but I didn’t want to ask. As usual he knew exactly what I wanted. Knew what I needed. He leaned in and used his tongue to lick a swath all the way up my crack. He did it again, a little firmer, and I squirmed to get his tongue where I wanted it. When he playfully flicked it over my hole, I wanted to kill him a little bit.
His chuckle sent a puff of warm air across my skin, and he finally, finally, buried his tongue in my hole. I let out an unholy groan that should’ve raised the damn dead, buried my head in my forearm, and just enjoyed the feeling of his tongue loosening me up.
“Need you to fuck me,” I finally managed. “Need it now.”
He reached over and grabbed the condom where I’d left it on the bed, and I turned a little so I could watch him stretch it over his perfectly shaped dick. Perfectly shaped for my purposes anyway. I licked my lips. It was a fucking shame I hadn’t got to taste him first.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You don’t want this to be over before it begins, you should stop looking at me that way,” he grated out as he smeared way too much lube on his dick.
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t ask him to go bare and decided to do something useful instead. I reached back and pumped his dick once, swiped some of the excess lube off, and wiped my fingers across my own hole. Then I pumped two fingers inside and grunted as they sank in past the knuckle. It hurt a little, but it felt incredible at the same damn time.
I made a startled noise as Danny grabbed both of my hands with one of his, and I fell forward and my cheek hit the sheets. He held my hands securely at the small of my back and kneed my legs open farther. Obviously I’d pushed him a little too much, and this was going to be the fastest fuck in history. I was definitely all right with that.
His cock found the area between my asscheeks with unerring accuracy, and he pumped a few times and just let his cock slide and rub over my hole. Sometimes his cock made it through and sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it got momentarily trapped and finally slipped through.
“Fuck,” I groaned. “Fucking tease. Just give it… to me.”
“Mmhmm.” On one of those slow, torturous passes, he finally pressed in and went as slowly as he could to give me time to adjust to the intrusion. I exhaled as he finally bottomed out, buried to the hilt. And just when I thought it couldn’t get better, he snapped his hips and fucked me slowly.
“Faster,” I managed, and he obliged. “Harder.”
He clearly found my bossiness amusing, but he complied and set a harder, stronger pace. We moved together in sync, as though we’d never been apart. The only sounds in the room, other than the slapping of skin on skin, were his soft grunts and the little embarrassing noises I couldn’t help but make every time he penetrated me. “Good?”
“Good,” I confirmed. I was glad he was all right with me bossing him around, because I sure as hell had some more demands. “Little to the left.” And then he hit that spot, and I groaned. “Right fucking there.”
“You’re like a goddamned GPS,” he said with a husky chuckle. “I know what I’m doing.”
He powered me down flat on the mattress and covered my body with his. I loved the way he felt over me, the strength of his body as he strained against me. Even flat on the bed, I struggled to lift my hips with every thrust, just as eager to receive as he was to give.
He let go of my hands to grip my hips and get a better angle. I braced myself with one hand to keep from being pile driven into the fucking headboard and used my other hand to roughly pull at my dick. It wasn’t going to be long. The feel of him fucking me, my ass sucking at him, pulling him back in, that fat cock hitting my prostate on every stroke was… indescribable. Beautiful. Fucking Rachmaninoff on a Harman Kardon stereo.
And then my body trembled and I came, burying my face in the tangled sheets, trying to stifle my whimpers. Danny wasn’t far behind me and braced himself on my damp back as he came with a loud groan. His arms finally gave out, and he collapsed on me with a grunt. I squawked and pushed at his shoulders and tried to roll him over to his side.
“Off, you oaf,” I muttered, slightly amused.
He rolled, but he took his sweet slowass time to do so. Then he took off the condom, tossed it in the wastebasket by the bed, and stretched out on his back beside me. “Didn’t you have to pass the physical, FBI guy? Pretty weak.”
I caught his grin in my peripheral and narrowed my eyes. “I did just fine, thanks. Only I carried a thirty-pound pack on the run, not two hundred.”
“I’m one eighty, you bastard.”
“One ninety if you’re a pound.”
“Fuck you.”
“You already did.” I turned to face him and beat back the sheets. I didn’t want to sleep in the wet spot, and I didn’t think he would volunteer.
He pulled me on top of him and ignored my struggling so easily I was embarrassed. He fitted me against him and buried his face in the crook of my neck. I stilled with the warm air of his breath soft against my skin. I liked that. More than I cared to admit.
“Better?” he asked.
Yeah. It was.
I sighed as he rubbed a hand down my back in a soothing way. I gave in to the urge finally and let my hand drift into his silky, dark hair. Breathed in his scent—sex and sweat and soap. That much closeness was foreign. Unfamiliar. But it was the best feeling I’d had in a very, very long time. It made my feelings kind of obvious, and the same thought that had run through my mind all afternoon hit me again.
I wanted to stay.
“I love you,” I whispered and then bit my lip.
My confession was met with nothing but the sound of deep, even breathing. Even sprawled all over him, I couldn’t tell if he was faking sleep or really just tuckered out. He was much better at faking than I ever was.
If ever there was a need for a time machine, that was it. I wasn’t even sure why I said it. Maybe because it just needed to be said. And maybe Ethan had really addled my mind with all his talk about personal truths.
Despite myself I’d fallen for him again. That’s if I’d ever stopped. And damned if I’d give him up. Not until I had to.
“Really love you,” I murmured again with a sigh and settled in even closer. I’m never going to get to sleep this way was my last thought before I drifted off.
Chapter 25
I WOKE alone.
I wasn’t surprised. Mostly because Danny seemed to think sleeping over four hours at a time was high treason. He also thought that getting up early was a wonderful thing. And I’m the one they sent to the department shrink?
I couldn’t be sure whether the vibration of my phone or the running shower woke me up, but I was up nonetheless. I stretched for the phone, and a sound escaped as my muscles protested. I was sore in places people weren’t supposed to be sore. That’s what happened when you had sex every once a millennium.
The phone had another tizzy on the nightstand, and I grabbed it. I scrubbed at my eyes as I answered. “What’s up, Chevy?”
“Tell me you love me,” she said. Instead of, you know, hello. Like most sane people.
“I love you,” I said obediently as I glanced at the time. Seven o’clock. My, my. Satan liked his helpers up early. “Now what the hell do you want?”
“I’ve been sweet-talking your ME, which wasn’t easy, considering I think he’s part gremlin.”
“Don’t feed him after midnight,” I reminded her with a yawn.
“Exactly. He said there was a depressed skull fracture at the back of the skull of your vic, which probably indicates blunt force trauma. He’s still testing implements, but he thinks maybe a tire iron. The official COD is exposure. Likely because of her injuries, she wasn’t able to navigate the marsh, and eventually the weather hastened her death.”
“Fantastic.” I sighed. Because being cracked on the noggin wasn’t bad enough.
The bathroom door opened and let out
a whoosh of Irish Spring- scented vapor. I glared as Danny strolled by in little more than a thin, threadbare towel clasped low around his hips. His abdominals flexed and contracted as he rigorously rubbed a towel over his hair. When he looked at me expectantly, I realized I’d been gawking and not listening to a word Chevy was saying.
“Chevy, hang on a sec.” I pressed the mute button on the phone. “Are you serious right now?”
I wasn’t in the mood to mince words. There was no need to put all that deliciousness on display if we didn’t have time to do something about it.
The corner of his mouth tilted upward. “Would you rather I come out naked?”
“Is there a damn difference?”
“Would you like me to show you the difference?”
Fuck yes, I would. My skin felt all tight and shivery as I ran my eyes down his form. That thin towel was suddenly under immense pressure as a particular part began to rise. I swallowed and broke the gaze.
I already knew the fucking difference. “Put on some damn clothes,” I said, not even surprised by the sudden husky quality of my own voice. I silently reminded myself that we didn’t have time for mutual blowjobs, and I unmuted the phone. “Sorry, Chev. So what’s your news?”
“I’ve also been doing a little sleuthing on your mysterious key. The positive is that it’s definitely a storage unit key. The negative is that there are forty-two self-storage facilities in the Brickell Bay area.”
I groaned. “How many units?”
“At least 200–250 per facility, ranging from the smallest five by five units to the larger ten by twenty units. That’s not including the vehicle storage.”
She sounded way too cheerful for what sounded like a lifelong project. My grandchildren would be looking for that storage unit. “Please tell me you have some good news.”
“I didn’t find any units registered to Amy Greene. Or any storage unit charges in her financial records. She must’ve paid cash. That’s if the key belongs to her at all. I also cross-referenced all of your suspects, and there’s no connection there either.”
