by Eden Butler
A rough, aching grunt, that sounds nothing like him, shoots from his throat and before he can stop himself, Vaughn grips Mollie’s waist, feeling the elastic of her shorts between his fingers as he jerks her against his chest. Hands pulling her head back, hair twisted in his fingers, he looks down at her, at her widening eyes and the small pant that releases between her open mouth, giving her a moment to change her mind; hoping she will and in the next beat, praying she doesn’t. “You don’t know what you’re asking for. I’m broken, Mollie. I’m a fucking failure.”
“Well then, Semper Fi, you’re my broken failure.”
Another grunt, this one like a deep, remote growl, and Vaughn lifts Mollie’s tiny body, holds her ass so that she can wrap her legs around his waist. “You might regret saying that one day, sugar.” And then he kisses her, rushing to catch up to where he left off with her the night of Viv’s attack. He is ready, prepared this time and he thinks he is stupid, a prattling idiot that told his sister he wouldn’t touch Mollie. If he honestly believed that was at all possible, he’d have never picked up a box of condoms at the convenience store outside of Jackson.
Mollie works on his neck again, nibbling, biting, tugging on his earlobe and the small moans she releases when he moves his hands up her back, under her t-shirt, nearly undo him. They bounce once on the mattress when he lays her down, and he likes how she immediately slips her shirt over her head, tugs down her shorts. She reaches for her thong, but he stops her, coming to his knees to peel the tiny fabric at her hip with his teeth.
“You smell so damn good.”
A wicked glint flicks in her eyes and she pulls him forward, feet on his shoulders. “I taste even better.”
Shit, he thinks. She’s gonna wreck me.
And then he tests her theory, sliding his mouth, his tongue, over her clit, slipping his fingers inside her, loving the sensation of her gripping him, and the wild, raw sounds she makes the deeper he sets over her. “Yes, baby, right there.” Vaughn loves the taste of her, how she is so sweet, how she responds to him, how this perfect little creature is consumed, overcome by his touch. It makes him eager, it makes him want this night to never end.
He slips in a finger, deep, straight back to her sweet spot and then another and Mollie’s hips lift off the mattress, her fingers threading into his hair to guide him, show him that she likes how he touches her. A few long strokes of his tongue, some quick rubs against her clit and Mollie is soaring, drunk on Vaughn, gripping and pulling his fingers in as she climaxes. He pulls back, watches her expression, how open, how purely sated she looks and his chest feels tight, full with the pleasure he gave her. When she is calmer, he inches up her body, holding her hips to kiss a soft path over her stomach, up to her ribs until she pulls on his waist and he is looking down at her.
“What, Mollie?” he asks, her momentarily smug by how she responded to him, by how high she looks now, eyes half lidded, smile lazy.
“You’re good at that, Semper Fi.” Mollie pulls on his neck to bring him just inches from her mouth. “Too good. I don’t usually…” she trails off and the smallest hint of a blush colors her cheeks. “Not that quickly anyway.”
Vaughn knows his smile is superior, ridiculous. “Well, I’m flattered.” Her neck is sprinkled with a faint hint of sweat and Vaughn licks against the moisture, loving the salty sweet taste of her skin.
He comes to her chin, to those plump lips he hasn’t been able to ignore for months now, and kisses her soundly, loving her airy breath, the warmth of her tongue, but then she pulls away, lifts his face in her hand. “Tell me what you like.”
That is a loaded question. Vaughn didn’t want them expelling all their little kinks in one night. He intended to discover every inch of her body, measure what she liked, what she didn’t when he touched her. But it didn’t need to happen in one night. Not with Mollie. She was not a one night kind of woman. “I like you. I like you touching me. I like watching you fall apart when I touch you. I can pretty much guarantee whatever you do to me, I’m gonna like.”
Mollie’s smile is wide and Vaughn thinks he’s never seen her expression so open, so exposed. He instantly decides he likes it. He didn’t know if she was waiting on him, if she wanted him to continue to take control and so when she only smiles at him, he lifts up, snakes his shirt over his head with one hand.
“Well, I like this,” she says, giving his nipple a soft pinch. Vaughn doesn’t bother repressing the shudder the action gives him. “And I definitely like this.” Mollie pops open his jeans, lowers his zipper to release him from his shorts.
“How… how much?” He doesn’t recognize his own voice, but with how Mollie touches him, works his erection with those clever fingers of hers, he doesn’t really care what he sounds like.
“This much.” And then Vaughn is on his back with Mollie working down his jeans, discarding his shorts and her mouth finds him, takes him hard.
“Fuck.” He can do nothing but look down at her, tremble when her mouth covers his dick completely, when those whiskey eyes watch him as she slides her tongue up and down the shaft. He makes a hmmpgh sound—weird and rasping, and he can only maintain his control by pulling her soft hair between his fingers, guiding her, but letting her do whatever the hell she wants. When the suction increases and Mollie works faster, harder, Vaughn’s eyes round and he knows he won’t last. “Stop. Wait…”
She sits up, frowning a bit and Vaughn leaves the bed, darting to his suitcase to fish out the condoms from the plastic bag beneath his jeans. He is so worked up, so eager, that he doesn’t bother looking down at himself as he rips open the foil, sliding on the latex as he walks to the bed.
Whatever look he is giving her, must do something to Mollie because the put-out frown shifts her mouth and a wide grin replaces it. “Prepared now, are we, Semper Fi?”
He only nods, climbs onto the mattress to crawl over to her. He doesn’t want to talk now. Vaughn doesn’t want sarcastic gibes or flirting. He only wants Mollie underneath him, to feel her tight walls welcoming his body. She rests on her elbows, but doesn’t move otherwise as Vaughn hovers over her, grabbing her ankles, tugging them closer before he drops one, two small kisses against the inside of her knee, then to her thigh. He knows there is no humor on his face because he is serious about this moment, about this girl and so he looks down at her, breath heavy, heart pounding before he leans on one palm, arm straight.
“Open up for me, Mollie.”
He thinks he hears her whisper “oh shit,” but her voice is too low, her mouth dropped open in surprise for him to be certain. Mollie’s quick nod is permission enough and then she moves her knees apart, and Vaughn slips home. And it is home. In his mind, he had never felt home like this: warm, wet, welcoming, cradling him as if this is where he was meant to be; this body was his, and she possesses him with each thrust he makes against her. She meets him willingly, holding him snug as he moves inside her, as she threads her fingers into his hair, takes his mouth like she owns it. With each kiss, with each small mewling sound, Mollie Malone chips away the dark haze from his heart and Vaughn thinks he might die from the sudden blinding exposure.
“Go deeper, baby.” Mollie’s back arches, and she lifts her legs back around his waist. “Go deep as you can.”
“Fuck. Don’t talk like that. You’ll undo me.” And he doesn’t mind her small laugh or the how loud her voice becomes. “You like this?” he asks, slamming into her, loving how she clenches, even though her legs spread further and further apart as she opens up to him.
“I fucking love everything about this.”
And then, there are no words, there is nothing but the sweat slick sound of their bodies coming together and the intoxicating pleasure, loud moans and heavy pants that move through that room. It goes on this way for minutes, could have been days, Vaughn can’t tell. There is suddenly too much sensation—Vaughn’s heart beating a quick rhythm, Mollie’s hair slapping him in the face when he shifts their position, her tongue, his, when they can’t go
for more than two seconds without kissing. And when Mollie’s nails pierce hard, deep lines in his flesh and the tightness around his dick becomes both pain and pleasure, she lets go, as they both soar, and suddenly, oblivion is marked by the bright light behind his eyes, by the loud growl of their voices ringing out.
They break apart, chests pounding with their deep inhalations, limbs trembling and moist with sweat and Vaughn doesn’t know what just happened. Oh, he knows what happened, but he isn’t sure that he’s ever experienced anything like it. He was a Marine for a long time and even before Caroline, there had been many “on leave” hook ups, many mornings when he woke up in some foreign country with strange bodies nestled against him. He had been with a lot of women, but none of them, even his poor Caroline, had left him feeling utterly completed; body, heart spent so that he thought he’d burst from the pleasure.
Mollie’s eyes are closed and small shudders move her arms and legs and Vaughn smiles, unable to fight the feeling of wanting her again, wanting her always. She exhales and her breasts move, small pebbles of tempting flesh that are impossible to ignore.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her, bringing her gaze straight to him.
“For what?”
“I can’t stop touching you.
And when he descends on her, touching her, kissing her again, Vaughn knows he’s never spoken anything truer. This, he thinks, might be a problem.
Morning after sex. Hmm, I like the buzz. Mollie’s limbs still tingle from the sensation of Vaughn inside her, the lick of pleasure that fine Marine brought her, the way they slept—legs, arms twined together. The light outside the window is dim, and the sun has yet to rise and through barely lifted eyelids, Mollie can see two finches fighting over something on the windowsill. Normally, she’d just be getting in at this hour, back when she was still a DJ, but Vaughn left the bed more than a half hour before and Mollie missed the hard ridges of his body against her.
She hears him outside the door, speaking to someone who clearly makes him unhappy and when she hears him shout “Fine, fine, I’ll do it” a sudden well of worry crawls up her throat. She’s never heard Vaughn yell like that, not when he was conscious, and Mollie wonders if this has something to do with last night or his sister. Or both.
The doorknob twists slowly, and Mollie pulls the covers over her naked shoulders, not yet ready to end her sated half-sleep. If she leaves this bed, the buzz will end. She’ll wake and Vaughn will tell her they have to return to reality. She doesn’t want to go back, not just yet. She doesn’t want to hole up in some hotel room with her Marine sleeping on the sofa. She doesn’t want to hear the endless questions her friends will have; they’ll expect details on where she’s been and why she needed to speak to her father so suddenly.
A dip on the mattress and Vaughn rustles her shoulder. “Mollie.” The worry expands with the sound of his voice. She doesn’t like how clipped his tone is, how distant. “We have to get going.”
Another nudge and she turns over, pulling the covers with her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He answers too quickly and doesn’t look her in the eyes. Mollie reaches for him, manages to touch his arm, but then Vaughn pulls back, stands at the foot of the bed. “Viv wants us back today. The detectives investigating your robbery are asking questions. She doesn’t like how thorough they’re being.”
“Isn’t that their job?” When she slips from the bed, naked, not bothering to cover herself quickly enough, Vaughn stares at her, eyes hungry, raking over her body.
He blinks, catches her eye as though he’s just remembered that she asked him a question. “It is, but Viv believes there are moles in the department. She has a guy on the inside and he told her they’d been asking about you.”
“Asking what?” Mollie’s temper flares when she moves to her suitcase and Vaughn turns from her. I don’t need this shit right now.
“I’m not sure, but she wants us to go into the precinct in Cavanagh. Try to feel out the detectives. They, uh, left a message for you on your phone.” He lifts Mollie’s phone toward her, but still wouldn’t look at her.
“You snooped in my phone?”
“Viv said they’d probably be trying to contact you.” Vaughn’s gaze whips to hers when she jerks her phone from his fingers.
She is dressed in khaki shorts and white tank top with lace trim on the bust, and when Vaughn looks over her outfit, quick, not focusing for too long on her body and Mollie’s irritation begins to swell. “Hey,” she says, standing in front of him, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. I just think we need to get on the road.”
“Bullshit, Semper Fi.” She reaches for him again and this time when Vaughn makes to jerk out of her touch, Mollie digs her nails into his skin. “Spill it. Right freaking now. What the hell is your problem?” He opens his mouth, twisting away from her touch. “And if you say ‘nothing’ one more time, I’m gonna show you where Autumn learned to take Declan to the ground with one knee.” She pushes on his chest and Vaughn sits on the bed.
“Last night…”
“Last night? You mean last night when we changed each other’s religions?” Mollie can see the quirk of a smile moving the corners of his mouth but then he leans on his knees and looks down at the floor, erasing his humor as quickly as it came.
When he speaks to her, his gaze trains to his fingers. “It was a mistake.”
“Which time? The first? Or the three afterward?”
“Mollie, I’m serious.” He at least has the decency to glance at her when he says that.
“Well, forgive me, Sergeant, but I’m trying to figure out how you can go from touching me like a starving freaking man about to attack a juicy steak to acting like a tumble or two was the worst thing you’ve ever done.” Vaughn rubs the back of his neck and Mollie suddenly knows that this isn’t his choice. Her father, his sister, someone got to him and she realizes he’s a chicken shit if he lets them dictate to him how to “handle” Mollie. “Must have been one hell of a scary phone call.”
“What did you hear?” Vaughn comes off the bed so fast, Mollie barely has time to step back before he is in front of her.
“Nothing much, just you screaming in the hall.” She curls her arms around her waist and sits on the bedside table. “Was it Viv?”
“I made a promise, Mollie.”
“Yeah? Well I didn’t.” She doesn’t care that she probably looks like an idiot, that her mouth is likely stern, hard and that her eyes are lowered into a “fuck off” glare.
“Hey,” he says, touching her arm. When she jerks away from her, he follows, then he has hold of her arms, walking her toward the wall so that she is trapped under his massive arms; caught frozen in the low cast of his gaze at it works over her face. “I said it was mistake. I didn’t say it was a mistake I won’t be repeating.”
Mollie doesn’t understand him, this. Vaughn wants her, she knows that, but he is a Marine, by-the-books and needing a mission, wants to be needed. It pisses her off. They were close, so close to something special, but he won’t let go. It seems that Vaughn has constructed a wall right between them, using her safety, his job as a way to keep her just on the other side.
He has her against the wall, looming down at her with his breath hard and panting, with his inhales making his chest move against her. She knows this isn’t him angry; this is Vaughn frustrated, exasperated by their situation and she feels it too. She wants to jump in his Jeep and run away, together, far from the danger that lurks, from her father, from whoever it is that is helping Vaughn to construct that damn wall.
“I have to protect you. I have to keep you safe and I can’t do that if all I’m thinking about is being inside you and I want to, Mollie. That’s what I want, to be inside you, have you around me. But right now I can’t let what I want cloud what I need and if that means I keep my hands off of you, just for now, then I’ll do it. You have to understand that.”
The mission, it’s all comes down to the mission and Mo
llie hates it, hates that someone else’s choices are keeping her from what she wants most. The anger bubbling in her chest is irrational, stupid, but Vaughn is the only one here, the only one she can lash out at. “I don’t have to do a fucking thing but breathe in and out and stay clear of the assholes trying to kill me.” Vaughn steps back when she pushes against him, threatening him with a finger on his chest. “Everything else is fair game.”
He pushes her finger away, gripping it in his fist. “You can be pissed at me. You can hate me, but I won’t touch you again until I know you’re safe.“ Mollie has learned Vaughn’s looks in the short weeks they’ve known each other. She know when he is teasing, when his eyes move over her face and land on her mouth, just the way they are now. She can tell with that one expression that he is firm, determined to push away what he wants for what she needs: protection. His large fingers touch her jaw and he moves her face toward him, mouths a whisper apart. “Even if it kills me, I’ll keep you safe.”
He kisses her, lips coming down to hers until she thinks bruises will appear, but Mollie knows this is a small, fierce way for him to tell her they are not done; that the goodbye is only temporary. Still, that stubborn Malone temper won’t let her arch into him or moan at the pressure of his lips, his tongue against her. It would be too much of a loss of control, the one thing she wants Vaughn to do. And she can’ take that, not anymore, his up-and-down, ‘I want you… I don’t want you’ dynamic of their relationship so far. He holds so tightly to his control, to his incessant need to do what he thinks is right, no matter if that “rightness” keeps her at arm’s length. It’s that surrender of control that Vaughn seems adamant not to release. Finally, she pushes him back, keeping her hand flat on his chest to hold him off.
