by Amy Andrews
She still felt closest to Finn out of all her brothers and it mattered to her what Finn thought of Raf. It shouldn’t. It wasn’t like it was a permanent thing. But it mattered anyway.
“Where’s Dawn?”
“She’s up with Pop.”
“Thanks for doing this,” she said. “You can head home. I can take it from here.”
Finn grinned. “Nah. I’m having fun,” he said. “Getting back to my roots.”
“Okay then,” she said, laughing. “Don’t let me stop you.”
And it was fun slinging beers with Finn and Raf. Finn had been so happy since Dawn had come back into his life. It was like he was whole after being a little bit empty for a long time and Faith was grateful every day for Dawn.
She shut the doors at midnight on the last reluctant customers trying to convince her she should serve them one more for the road.
“That was great,” Finn announced from behind the bar, his smile infectious. He’d stayed until the end no matter how many times Faith had tried to get him to go home.
Finn started to pile up the few remaining empties but Faith waved him away. “Enough. Go home now,” she insisted. “I know how much you want to get Dawn back to your little Soho love nest.”
He looked at her sheepishly. “Am I that transparent?”
“Like a sheet of glass,” she said with a nod. “Plus I remember how you used to try anything to get out of doing the dishes at the end of the night. So you’re in luck. Besides, I owe you for covering for me.”
“No you don’t, Faith,” he said, gathering her up for a hug and a kiss on the head. “We owe you.”
Faith’s heart squeezed tight. “I’ll be up soon,” she said.
Finn held out his hand to Raf who was standing behind Faith. “Nice meeting you.”
Raf smiled. “Likewise.”
“You’ve made a great beer. You may even convert me to lager.”
Faith faked a horrified look. “Finn Sullivan! Don’t let Pop hear you saying that.”
He laughed and kissed her on the head again. “See you soon.”
Faith was smiling as she took the last of the glasses into the kitchen and shoved them in the industrial dishwasher and pushed the start button. The lights blinked on the stainless monstrosity as it started its cycle and Faith’s thoughts drifted to today. About how excited she’d been to show Raf her happy place and how nice it had been to confide in him about Mercy’s job and how unbelievably thrilling it was to have come up with an idea for it as she was talking to him.
And those lazy few hours in his bed.
Hands slipped around her waist again and before Faith knew it she was being turned and backed up snug to the bench and Raf’s mouth was descending and she sucked in everything he had to offer, opening her mouth to the heat of lips and the hungry urgency of his tongue. She slipped both of her hands into his jeans, grabbing handfuls of his tight ass a little chilly from the basement.
She kneaded his glutes hard urging him closer and he groaned. Then suddenly she was being lifted, her hands sliding from his jeans as her ass landed on the bench and he was stepping between her legs. The bulge behind his zipper pressed hard against the seam of her jeans rocking there in a deliciously slow grind.
“Fuck,” he groaned into her neck, a hand brushing against her breast as he rocked and rocked. “I want you.”
Faith gasped and arched her back, her pulse pounding madly through her head. She knew exactly how he felt as she locked her feet around the backs of his legs to keep up the delicious friction.
He kissed her again as one hand slid under her shirt for closer contact and she needed that too. To feel his warm skin beneath her palms. She reached halfway down his back and grabbed a fistful of his shirt, dragging it up.
“Faith, we’re – ”
Faith tore her mouth away, dropping the handful of fabric as she pushed at Raf’s chest and his hand slid out from under her shirt. He stuck close though, barely moving back, just turning to the side slightly, his hand firm on her thigh. Given the size of what she’d felt through their jeans, he probably couldn’t.
“God…sorry,” Finn said, looking awkwardly from one to the other. Dawn, on the other hand was grinning. “I didn’t realize…I thought that Raf had left.”
“Sorry,” Raf said his voice sounding as amused as Dawn looked. “Still here.”
“Yes,” Finn acknowledged looking at a spot just past their heads.
“Oh dear, you’ve ruined him now,” Dawn grinned, completely unperturbed. “We’re off.” She waved her hands at them. “As you were.”
Faith found her voice even though she wasn’t entirely sure what she should be saying. I’m sorry? Or, it’s not what it seems. Because she wasn’t sorry and it was what it seemed and she was twenty-seven years old. She didn’t need to explain herself.
So she acted like it was perfectly normal for her to have a fully aroused man standing between her legs. “Thanks much for tonight, you guys. I really appreciated it.”
“Me too,” Raf said, squeezing her thigh and a hot jolt streaked from his hand right up to where his fly had been tormenting hers moments ago.
“We can see,” Dawn teased. Then she blew a kiss in their direction and dragged Finn past them and out the alley door.
Raf’s soft chuckle broke the silence as the door clicked shut behind them and he returned to his prior position snug between her legs. “Well, that was awkward,” she murmured.
“Imagine if they’d come along a couple of minutes later.”
Faith didn’t want to imagine that at all. Neither of them would have had their shirts on. Her bra would probably be lying on the floor somewhere or hanging over one of the pots above them.
It wouldn’t have been good.
Well…it would have been very good for her but she doubted Finn would see it that way.
Raf was so calm about the interruption. Amused even, his sexy face all smiley and charming. “I’m sorry. I’m sure this is nothing like you’re used to.”
“No, it’s okay, I like it,” he said with a grin.
“Like what?”
“All this sneaking around and necking. I feel as if I’m a teenager again trying to convince a girl to let me do it.”
“I sincerely doubt you ever had to convince anyone.”
His chuckle spoke volumes as he nuzzled up and down her neck, goose bumps flaring to life wherever he touched. “Mmm,” he growled and it reverberated against her skin, darting little arrows of pleasure straight to her nipples. “I want you.”
Faith shut her eyes dropping her head back for him as his mouth and his words created havoc. “You had me for three hours.”
“It’s not enough,” he muttered.
The words wormed straight to Faith’s heart and she shut her eyes and silently chanted, player, player, player.
“It’s going to have to do for now,” she said paying heed to the chant. “I’ve got to get up to Pop.”
Raf sighed, hot against her neck and another wave of goose bumps darted to every erogenous zone she owned and a few she never knew existed. He pulled back slightly and looked at her. “Do you think Finn’s going to challenge me to a duel or something?”
“I hope not. Dawn will probably sell tickets and popcorn at the door.”
He laughed. “I like him. I like both of them.”
“I think the feeling is mutual,” Faith said with a pleased little smile. She cradled his face and kissed him long and hard before pushing him away. “Go home now.”
He saluted, his mouth deliciously wet from her kiss. “Yes ma’am.”
Chapter Ten
‡
That was how their days unfolded for the next two weeks as February became March. A lot of necking and heavy petting. Twice petting went beyond the point of no return and they went all the way. Once in the basement – the freezing cold wall a surprising turn-on against her blistering hot skin – and once on the desk in the office.
And then there were two forays
into Manhattan and the much more comfortable surrounds of Raf’s hotel room.
It was…bliss. Faith knew a lot of other women having this great a time with a sex god would be figuring out ways to extend it or tie him down. Not her. He’d been upfront about the parameters of their tryst and she was determined to stay inside them.
Determined to live in the moment and not think beyond the few weeks he was here. To savor every moment. Reality would bite soon enough.
And it did. During the third week of the lager trial, Raf had to go to Chicago for two nights. If she hadn’t realized the impact of his presence in her life before then she certainly did when she had to go two days and nights without him. She missed him like crazy.
Missed looking up and seeing him, missed brushing arms with him as they stood pouring beer at the taps together, missed his warm throaty laughter and his dry-as-a-long-Australian-summer accent. Missed those smoldering looks and the secret slide of his hand when no one was watching.
It didn’t help that Pop kept singing his praises and all the regulars kept asking for him.
Her head was full of him when she got in from work the second night. He’d be back tomorrow. Tomorrow. At midday. He was coming straight to Sully’s from La Guardia. Faith smiled as she curled in a ball on the bed, thinking about him.
She opened her bedside table drawer and pulled out his tie. She’d shoved it there the day he’d told her to keep it and had brought it out often, inhaling the surf and sunshine smell of him too many times to count. She did it again now, wrapping it around her fist as he had done, her eyes fluttering closed as the faint whiff of Raf intoxicated her.
Her cell buzzed to alert her to an incoming message. Raf. He’d sent her quite a few texts the last two days. Some of them a little on the risqué side. Faith’s hands shook as she pulled it out of her back pocket and slid across the bar on the screen. There was a picture attached of a pint of Guinness and the message beneath read Chicago Guinness. Not as good as Sully’s.
She smiled as she texted back. You bet your sweet ass. Still out schmoozing?
The reply was rapid. Back in hotel. The next text arrived hot on its heels. So…what are you wearing?
Faith glanced at the tie still entwined around her fist and had a very naughty idea. Some might even call it a very bad idea. Ty, the lawyer, would have lectured her about insecure networks. And if she hadn’t been so damn horny it probably never would have even crossed her mind.
But she was half crazy with wanting him.
She leapt up and locked her door then tore off her shirt and bra, her nipples reacting to the air and the illicitness of what she was about to do. She slung the tie around her neck and pulled it into a hasty Windsor knot that sat just above her cleavage, the tails falling snugly between her breasts.
Then, hands shaking, she snapped a selfie.
Faith looked critically at the image on the screen. Hard to believe it was her, naked from the waist up, her hair its usual curly disarray, two high spots of color in her cheeks. Her outstretched arms had pushed her breasts together a little, holding the tie in place. It looked sexy caught between her breasts like that.
She looked sexy.
She tapped out her message. Just this old thing. Then she attached the picture. Before she could chicken out she hit send.
A wave of instantaneous panic swept over her and Faith sank to the bed on its paralyzing wave. Had she really just done that?
She fell backwards as a bunch of wild possibilities filled her head. What if the…NSA was monitoring her calls? What if someone mugged Raf for his cell and found the picture and put it on their Facebook page? What if she’d accidentally sent it to her brother instead? Ronan was right next to Raf in her contacts list for fuck’s sake.
Faith looked at her phone in horror, her fingers flying over the screen to check she’d sent it to the right R person. Sweet relief rushed through her when it all checked out but she nearly dropped the phone when it sprang to life.
It was Raf skyping her.
A complete nervous wreck now, she pushed herself up against the headboard and took three calming breaths before she answered. His tanned face and sexy smile filled the screen and her need for him ramped up another notch. She didn’t get a chance to say hello or any of the preliminaries before Raf dived straight in.
“Are you trying to kill me, Faith Sullivan?”
Faith’s ego swelled a little at the raw ache in his voice. It did something to her to know he was hurting as badly as she was. “Thought it might help you sleep.”
She smiled at the incredulity obvious in his face contortion. “Not likely. Show me again.”
Her smile faded. “What?”
He shot her an impatient look. “Move the camera down so I can look at you. I want to see. I need to see.”
“Oh.” A frisson shimmied down Faith’s back. She angled her cell out and up slightly. “How’s that?”
“Perfect,” he groaned, desire etched on his face. “So good. My tie has never looked so hot.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“That is an understatement. Can you…arch your back a little?”
Faith’s breath cut out at the blatantly sexual request, her nipples contracted to tight pebbles. But she did exactly what he asked, her hot breath moving like sandpaper through her lungs.
“Yes,” he muttered. “Closer.”
There was a huskiness to his accent that was almost. palpable, stroking from her ear right down her neck as Faith brought her phone in close to one breast.
“God, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more perfect than your nipples. I wish one was in my mouth.”
Faith swallowed against her suddenly parched throat. “I wish it was too,” she admitted, watching his face as he stared at it so intently. His finger touched his screen, obviously tracing the contours of her breast.
He was seven hundred miles and two small screens away but she swore she felt the brush of that finger.
“Touch it,” he said. “I want to watch you touch it.”
Her hand trembled as she slid it onto her breast and squeezed.
“Fuck.” His low rumble churned through her pelvis.
Egged on by his appreciation, Faith rolled her nipple between her thumb and index finger, pinching it lightly. She bit down on her lip as sensation spiraled everywhere.
“Jesus. That feels good, doesn’t it?”
“So good,” she gasped as she pinched again, her back arching without any direction this time.
“You wanna see what I’m wearing?”
“Yes.” God, yes.
The screen panned out to reveal a naked, aroused Raf, his cock lying thick and proud against the golden perfection of his belly. Heat and liquid gushed to the juncture of her thighs and she squirmed in her jeans.
“This is what you do to me, Faith,” he said, the cell camera shifting again until it was hovering above Raf’s pelvis, zeroing in on the long hard length of him. He wrapped his hand around his girth and Faith heard a muffled groan.
Hers wasn’t remotely muffled. She’d always been obsessed with his hands and watching them now as he gripped himself, the veins as prominent as ever, she knew she had more fodder for her sketch pad.
“Take your jeans off,” he said. “I wanna make you come.”
This wasn’t what Faith had in mind when she’d snapped her nudie pic but…why not? Raf was stroking his curled fist up and down his shaft with slow measured movements and she really wanted in.
“I can hear your brain clicking all the way over here in Chicago, Faith Sullivan. What are you thinking?”
Faith adjusted her phone so he could see her face. He didn’t repay the favor and she didn’t insist that he did. Watching Raf touch himself was so freaking hot. “I’m thinking about the Mother Superior at St. J’s where I went to school.”
“You’re thinking about a nun while I have my hand on my cock?”
“Not very successfully, no.”
His low chuckle st
roked velvety fingers over her nipples. “I take it she didn’t approve of masturbation?”
“She thought it was sin. I’m pretty sure mutual masturbation over some kind of telephonic device may have exploded her brain.”
“We’re not breaking any laws, Faith.”
Faith was certain they were breaking several telecommunications laws. Laws that in some states might well count as pornography and probably carried a mandatory prison sentence. Faith was a law abiding citizen. She prided herself on that. She didn’t litter, she didn’t cheat on her taxes and she gave up her seat for little old ladies and gentlemen on the bus. She’d never even jaywalked.
And she lived in New York for Christ’s sake!
But then his hand reached down and fondled his balls. “Oh God,” she muttered, swallowing as he squeezed them with what seemed unbearable pressure.
“Take your jeans off, Faith.”
Faith dropped the phone at his ragged demand, springing up, one eye on his hand action as she shucked the offending article off. Each wiggle and twist made her aware of the ache deep inside her begging to be soothed.
She was on the bed again in twenty seconds, lying flat on her back naked except for the tie. “Done,” she announced, breathless from the frenetic activity as she grabbed the phone in time to see the stroking of his hand up and down his shaft had picked up pace a little.
“Are you touching yourself?” he asked.
Faith’s pelvic floor undulated in anticipation. “No.”
“Then touch yourself.”
It wasn’t a command but his rough voice scraped like sandpaper over her body making it impossible not to obey. She slid her hand from her belly into the slick heat between her legs gasping as her fingers immediately found the tight, swollen bundle of nerves they sought.
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” he said, his breathing heavy now.
Faith opened her eyes to see a bead of moisture had oozed from the head of Raf’s cock. “Yes.”
“Are you stroking yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
Faith moved the phone down to where her hand was getting busy. It was impossible to give him a good view and see what he was doing on her screen but that could wait.
