by Kit Rocha
But the silence made it seem too much like a dream. “Talk to me,” she murmured.
“Let’s forget the rest of the world for a while,” he whispered. “Just stay here. In your shower. In your bed. I never thought I’d see you again, and now I don’t want to let you out of my sight.”
Left to her own devices, she’d take it even further. She’d pretend they’d never met before his arrival in Sector Four, that every touch, every whisper, was brand new. That none of it had to be second-guessed or framed with the baggage of the past.
That he could be hers, without doubt or reservation. “I could stay here.” Water sluiced down over his skin, washing away the soap, and she followed it with her fingertips. “Or here.”
Barely a touch, and every inch of his powerful body shuddered. “Or lower.”
“Horny bastard.” She teased him with the soft brush of her palm over the head of his cock. “Tell me what you want.”
Another shudder. And a moan this time, a low, hungry sound that felt like triumph. Even more when he spoke. “I want your mouth on me again. And this time, I don’t want you to stop.”
She slid down the tile, all the way to her knees, and stared up at him as he loomed above her, blocking the water but not the light, not entirely. It cast one side of his face in shadow, but his eyes...
He was watching her like she could bring him to his knees with a single touch, and she never wanted it to stop.
She touched his thighs, drawing her fingernails lightly over his skin, relishing the answering flex of muscle. A scar cut across one leg, thin and raised, and he hissed as her fingers traced over it. “If I’d known I’d see you again, I wouldn’t have gotten so banged up.”
“Do I look disappointed?”
“You look perfect.”
The words shivered through her as she wrapped her hand around the base of his cock, and she held his gaze as she stroked him. Slowly, up to the head and down again, alternating a light tease with a firm grip.
His jaw clenched. His hips flexed, thrusting his shaft into her hand. “You don’t take orders, do you?”
She’d learned this from him—how to draw out the moment until it sharpened into the finest knife’s edge of anticipation, just before it tipped over into frustration. “I take pleasure,” she whispered, then leaned in and traced her tongue over the tip of his cock.
He groaned, one hand slipping on the tile. And then it was in her hair, his fingers twisting through the damp strands to cup the back of her head, a warning but not a demand. Not yet. “Take more of it. Take me.”
She did, licking him one more time before parting her lips. He trembled with restraint, and she drew him in gently, slowly.
At first. But the moment he tightened his fingers—just a little, and probably not on purpose—she sucked him deep into her mouth. Hard.
“Fuck.” His fingers dug in, holding her in place as he panted. “Just like that. Don’t fucking stop.”
She obeyed, keeping up the same pressure even as she deepened the caress. But her hand was in the way, so she dropped it and clutched at the back of his calf.
“I remember this,” he said hoarsely, rocking back and returning, fucking her mouth in slow, careful strokes. “I remember trying to pull you back so I wouldn’t hurt you. And you’d take all of me.”
Because he made her greedy. No matter what he offered, she knew in her heart that she would always want more.
Always.
She met his next thrust eagerly, and the head of his cock hit the back of her throat. Trix fought the urge to tear away and swallowed him instead. He rewarded her with another tortured, pleased noise, with his fingertips rubbing encouraging circles against her head.
“Just like that.” He held her there for what seemed like forever before drawing back, only to push deeper the next time, his grip edged with the same roughness as his voice. “You can take it, can’t you, baby? You can swallow my whole damn cock.”
Yes. When he tried to retreat again, she followed him, pulling against the hold he had on her hair. She kept him in her throat as long as she could, until her lungs burned and her head began to swim, until she had to break away and gasp for breath.
But when she tried to take him again, he tightened his fingers, wrenching her head back with the rough edge of command she’d started to think he would never show her. “Where do you want me to come, Trix?”
The answer sprang to her lips without thought. “All over me.”
His gaze locked with hers. His lips curved slowly. “You want your pearl necklace, baby doll? Take it.”
It was more than permission. For once, it was a demand, and Trix took it. She grasped his cock and pumped her hand, slow and hard.
“Faster.” He released her hair, returning his hand to the slippery tile wall. Every muscle in his body seemed tense, but his gaze didn’t fall to her hand. It stayed locked on hers. “You know what gets me off.”
Her body responded automatically, from the renewed rush of heat to the way her hand sped. She twisted her fist lightly as she reached the tip of his cock, just enough to flick her thumb roughly over the sensitive spot beneath the head.
Finn’s eyes glazed. His breathing sped. Then he bit off a curse and covered her hand with his own, squeezing her fingers almost painfully tight as he jerked them over his shaft, faster and faster until he came with a choked noise and a hot spurt that painted her chin and open mouth.
Before, he would have watched her with a vague look of shame and recrimination as come dripped from her chin to her breasts, as she licked the taste of him from her lips. Now he followed her tongue with his thumb, stroking her swollen lips with a smile of unchecked satisfaction.
Fuck, it was hot.
Then he twisted his hand. Gripped her chin. “Stand up.”
She rose, sliding her body against his as she moved, and reached to wrap her arms around his neck. But he caught them and twirled her, pressing her to the tile with her hands above her head. “I never got to finish what I’d started.”
Everything in the shower was slick and steamy, but the tile was still cool, and Trix shivered as her nipples hardened at the contact. “No, you didn’t.”
“And you were close, weren’t you?” His hand edged between her body and the wall and slid down to cup her pussy. “So wet and tight around my fingers. You would have come right there in the street. For me.”
She bit back a whimper, tried to turn it into a noise of agreement. In the street, everything had been quick and hard, overwhelming. You had to move fast when you were getting off in an alley—but the shower was different. Private, enclosed, a whole little universe of its own where nothing existed but them.
They had all the time in the world, and Finn would take it.
And he did. Slow. Painfully gentle, one fingertip ghosting over her clit so lightly it almost wasn’t there. As if to contrast it, his grip on her wrists tightened, pinning her in place as he worked her over with gradually deepening circles.
The spinning pleasure left her dizzy. She turned her cheek to the tile and closed her eyes. “I’m so hungry, Finn, all the time. It never stops.”
“I know.” His fingers parted, opening her to him. A third pushed into her with a shallow, easy stroke. “It doesn’t have to stop.”
Except that the idea terrified her. Their relationship had once been based on that sort of loss of control, on the fact that, no matter how hard either of them tried, they couldn’t stay away from each other.
It had almost killed them both.
The thought shuddered through her as surely as his touch. “Tell me this is different,” she begged.
“I don’t have to.” He pressed his forehead to her temple, his breath hot against her cheek. “You can feel it. You know it in your bones. Nothing’s the same as before.”
Because he wasn’t fighting her anymore. Fighting himself. They were sober, clear-headed, free to do what they wanted—and this was it. More than anything else, more than breath.
&nb
sp; Another jolt of heat burned up her spine, and she couldn’t stop her hips from moving, seeking more profound contact. He gave her that, too, one broad finger pumping deliciously deep. “I came on your tongue. I want you to come on mine.”
The mental pictures evoked by the words—riding his tongue, watching his eyes as he drove her toward the edge—twisted the need even tighter. “Finn.”
He laughed—probably at the scandalized edge in her voice—and turned her, pressing her back against the wall before sliding to his knees. “Don’t turn shy on me now, doll.”
“I’m not. I’m—” She tangled her fingers in his wet hair. “The things you say. It’s new, that’s all. You never talked like this before.”
“Didn’t do a lot of things before.” He laid a hand on each leg, tracing his thumbs up along her inner thighs. “I used to wonder, every time I touched you, if you really wanted it.”
I would have stopped you. The protest died, unspoken. The truth was that she would have done anything. The fact that fucking him had always been pleasurable was incidental. In the end, all that had mattered was knowing when her next hit was coming, because that was what addicts did.
She told him the truth instead. “You were the only thing I ever wanted as badly as the drugs.”
He coaxed her legs wider, steadying her when her foot slipped. “I’m going to tell you every filthy fucking thing I want to do with you and to you. Because I only know what gets you off. I want to learn what turns you on.”
She almost laughed, but then he bit her hip and cut off her breath. She leaned her head back and arched off the tile. “Fuck.”
“Go on,” he rumbled, the words tickling over her abdomen as he stroked her pussy with both thumbs. “Tell me what turns you on.”
“I don’t—” His tongue touched her, tracing lightly over her outer lips. She hissed and braced her hands on his shoulders. “Rough. I like it a little rough.”
He hummed, shifted his grip to her ass, and swiped the flat of his tongue over her clit. Sensation splintered through her, and she rocked against his tongue instinctively.
So he did it again. And again.
And again.
The sheer abandon of it wrenched a cry from her throat. She rode his mouth, eager to take what he offered—not just the physical release, but the passion, pure and untouched by anything but their desire.
It built until her legs were shaking and he had to hold her up, until she wasn’t sure she could stand another moment. Then his lips found her clit, a gentle kiss that turned rough as he lashed her with his tongue.
She tensed, but there was no denying the command in his caress—or the orgasm that shattered through her. She came hard, oblivious to everything but the pressure of his hands on her skin and the heat of his mouth.
She was still shaking when he eased her down the wall to straddle his lap. “You with me?”
Blood roared in her ears, and her hands fumbled as she brushed her wet hair out of her face. “Barely.”
Finn’s fingers joined hers, coaxing the tangled strands back from her forehead. “I got you, baby.”
“I know.” She always had, even in the depths of her addiction and the lowest points of their fucked-up relationship.
He rose slowly, lifting her to her feet, as well. He didn’t speak as he steadied her against the wall and reached for the soap, or when he’d lathered his hands and was smoothing them along her skin.
If only the others could see him like this. The way she did.
His earlier words came rushing back, and Trix stroked his cheek. “We’ll stay here. The rest of the world will get along fine without us for a while.”
He turned his face into her hand with a smile. “Then hurry up and help me get clean, so I can get you into bed and get you dirty again.”
Lex
Dallas always looked at his map when he was trying to think, planning moves and countermoves in his head. Thinking about possibilities, and sometimes even inevitabilities.
Lex shut the office door behind her and leaned against it, watching him. “I knew you’d be here.”
He glanced up long enough to spare her a smile of welcome before going back to his staring. “Better enjoy it while I can. If I turn my back for too long, Noelle and Mia will be in here putting everything on a computer.”
“You’ll never give up your maps.” She crossed the space between them and rubbed his back between his shoulder blades. “Have you seen Trix around lately?”
“I saw her in the bar,” he said absently, still squinting at the notations he’d scribbled over Sector Five. But he caught up with the question a few seconds later, his back tensing under her hand. “Shit, that’s the only place I’ve seen her since she came back.”
“Mmm. She works, and she goes home.” Lex leaned down and kissed the back of his shoulder. “I don’t really blame her. It’s one hell of an awkward situation. But something to watch.”
“Something I haven’t been doing.” Dallas sighed and sat back in his chair. “When did I get so damn soft?”
“You’re not.” He didn’t want to deal with Finn—didn’t want to hate him, and especially didn’t want to like him. It could only make his hard decisions even more difficult. “I talked to Noah. He was there back in the day. He knows what they were like together.”
Dallas flexed his fingers. Formed a fist. “I already know I’m not gonna like it. Finn’s always been a cold bastard.”
It had certainly seemed that way during the brief contact they’d had with him in his capacity as one of Sector Five’s enforcers. But Noah’s words had painted another, possibly more dangerous picture.
Best to get it the fuck out there. “He’s not cold. He’s crazy, and Trix is his trigger point.”
Dallas twisted to stare up at her. “So that’s how Fleming got his head blown off?”
“It wasn’t the first time, either.” Noah had told her the story, and relaying it to Dallas now raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck. “He killed the guy who got her hooked on the addictive shit. Walked into a meeting, shot him in the face, and told everyone else to stay the fuck away from her.”
From the dark look in his eyes, Dallas found it utterly reasonable, and his words confirmed it. “Doesn’t seem all that crazy to me. I would have done worse if someone had doped you up with that trash.”
“I know.” She stroked her fingers through his hair. “It’s not that. It’s the question, you know? What else he might do, and whether it could hurt Trix in the end.”
“Is there any way out of this mess where Trix doesn’t end up hurt?”
He had more pressing concerns than her emotional welfare. “Is Beckett still making noise about wanting Finn to come back to Five and face justice?”
“Yeah.” Dallas yanked the map closer and ran his hands over it. “I keep doing the math, and it’s not coming up pretty. If he hauls me up before the other sector leaders... Sector One sides with us. Two will be with Five. Six and Seven cancel each other out because they’ll never agree on a damn thing. No vote from Three...” He slapped his hand down on Sector Eight. “I don’t like our odds, gambling on Jim Jernigan’s mercy.”
Fuck. “Are you going to tell Finn?”
“I don’t know.” Dallas traced a finger along the dividing line between Four and Five, and she could almost see the wheels spinning in his head. “Beckett’s still playing good cop. Wanna hear the latest offer?”
“Christ, I don’t even know. Do I?”
“Our own personal regen tech, fully equipped. Hell, Lex. After what happened with Ace and Zan...”
He had to be tempted, and for good reason. It was a trade that outweighed Finn’s supposed value exponentially. “Makes you wonder why he really wants Finn back, doesn’t it?”
“It sure as hell isn’t because of justice.” Dallas groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. “Beckett’s cold, no doubt about it. But if he wants to play nice and stay out of our way, can we afford to provoke him? Shit’ll come down eith
er way, but we’re more likely to survive it if we have some time to prepare.”
She shook her head. “He’s tipping his hand. This is important to him, and it isn’t because he wants to avenge Fleming’s death. That makes Finn one hell of a trump card, and we can’t afford to hand him over too easily.” Or too soon.
Dallas caught her hand and hauled her into his lap. “Promise me something, love.”
She settled across his legs and wound her arms around his neck. “Anything.”
“Don’t let me lie to myself.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Last time I was staring down this many tempting bad decisions, I almost lost you.”
“Okay.” She hesitated. “There’s one way I can see that we can get through this without Trix getting hurt. And it’s not the easy path.”
“Tell me.”
“We keep him,” she said softly. “And to hell with what Logan Beckett wants.”
“He’ll never belong,” Dallas replied just as quietly. “Not if he spends all his time hiding under Trix’s skirts.”
“We all have things we run to when shit gets tough.” Dallas had his maps, and Finn had Trix. “Bren says he seems to know his way around under the hood of a car.”
“That’ll do for now, I guess. Think he’ll show up tomorrow night?”
“He has to. He’s got a lot to prove.”
Chapter Twelve
When the first man went down spitting blood, Finn finally understood the O’Kanes.
The warehouse behind the Broken Circle was all sex, booze, and violence, distilled into one perfect storm of emotional release. Fight night, the night the O’Kanes stepped down from their holier-than-thou pedestals and punched each other in the face for giggles.
It was easier to believe the rest of it when you saw them like this. It was easier to believe that Dallas O’Kane could be ruthless enough to rule a sector and decent enough to rule it well. Because he wasn’t some naïve dreamer about to be clobbered by reality, or a sociopath who’d learned how to hide his darker nature.
