A soft sound crossed her lips, torn halfway between irony and pure despair. “Of course, I know! But he’s my brother. If something happens to him, it might be Sinclair’s responsibility, or yours, or the RPD’s. But it’ll be my fault. If he gets hurt, if Rusty figures out what he’s doing, if…”
Kennedy paused, her voice turning to an emotion-filled whisper that seemed to stick in her throat before finally emerging. “A long time ago, I promised my brother I’d take care of him, and that I would have his back no matter what. If Xander dies, that’s on me, Ian. Me.”
In that moment, as her bright green eyes filled with tears, Gamble’s gut panged with realization that stole the breath right out of his lungs.
She wasn’t throwing around her bravado to be tough, and she wasn’t angry.
She was terrified.
15
Standing there, in the middle of Gamble’s foyer with her hands on her hips and her heart in her windpipe, Kennedy hated herself.
The fact that not only was she about to do something as idiotic as cry in front of him, but that she wanted nothing more than for him to wrap those big, bruiser arms of his around her and hold her while she did it?
Yep. She was a serious contender for self-loathing right now.
“Is that really what you think? That this is your fault?” Gamble asked. His voice had grown quiet, although no less intense than a minute ago, and damn it, damn it, she needed to eighty-six the hot, stupid tears that had gathered in her eyes, fast.
But then, Gamble reached up to cup her face with one massive palm, and instead, she broke in two.
“It is,” Kennedy said, a ripple of mortification moving through her as a choked sob escaped from her throat. “Maybe not directly, but I shouldn’t have left him behind in the first place. I should have made him come with me when I left North Point.”
Gamble’s dark brows gathered over his stare. “But you tried. You told me you asked, and Xander said no.”
“He was eighteen.” She made a noise of frustration, sharp and quick. “He didn’t know anything other than The Hill even existed outside of his wildest dreams. But I did. I knew better, and I didn’t do better. Don’t you see?” Her tears spilled down her face steadily now, but God, she was so scared and angry and just plain raw that she couldn’t make herself try to be tough. “It was my job to keep him safe, and I let this monster get at him. If Rusty hurts him, if anything happens, it’s on me.”
“No.”
The word split the scant space between them with no measure of leeway or apology. It stunned Kennedy into stillness, her pulse knocking so hard against her throat that all she could do was stand there and listen as Gamble continued, his gravelly voice pinning her into place.
“None of this is your fault. I know he’s your brother, and I get that you’re scared right now. But Xander is an adult, who made his own decisions.” Gamble paused to swipe his thumb over the tears streaming across her cheekbone, his hand warm and soft despite its sheer size, and God, when was the last time she’d felt something so purely good?
As if he sensed her need for him to just keep touching her, to hold her steady in this moment, he continued. “Yes, your brother made bad choices, and yes, you can help him get his shit together, but nothing that’s happened to him is on you.”
“My brain knows that,” Kennedy said, because, while she might have a dump truck full of loyalty to her brother, she also wasn’t a moron. “Logically, of course I realize that he’s an adult with his own life. But I raised him, far more than our mother did. It’s so hard for me to be okay with a choice that I know puts him in danger. Even if that choice is for the greater good.”
“I know, but it really is the best shot we have at getting Rusty off the streets, which is also the best way to be sure he never gets to Xander.”
Just like that, all the fight seeped out of her, leaving behind only the fear that had fueled it. “I’m sorry I came over here and yelled at you like a raving lunatic. I’m just really scared.”
“You’re not a raving lunatic.” Gamble huffed out a small breath that likely meant to be a laugh. Sliding his hand lower over her face, he hooked his index finger beneath her chin to lift it far enough to catch her gaze. “Do you think it was easy for me to tell Xander I need him on this case when I knew it could put him in harm’s way? When I knew it would upset you?”
The words registered on a delay, her mouth parting on a gasp. “You cared about upsetting me?”
“I care about not hurting you,” he said. “I care…about a lot of things.”
“Oh.”
It was precisely that moment when Kennedy realized she must have barged in on him moments after he’d gotten out of the shower. He was shirtless—she swallowed thickly—and his hair was just the slightest bit damp where it curled over his forehead. He smelled like soap, nothing fancy or overdone, just simple and clean, but also masculine. Their bodies were close enough to touch, his hips near her belly, her shoulders by the hard, flat wall of his chest. His finger still rested under her chin, mere inches from the pulse point that was fluttering madly beneath the hinge of her jaw, and oh God, oh God, oh God.
Kennedy didn’t just want him. Right now, she fucking craved him.
A fact that must have clearly shown on her face, because Gamble’s pupils flared, turning his stare dark and dangerous. “Kennedy,” he started. But he didn’t continue, so she tilted her head until her mouth was less than a breath from his.
“Hmmm?” she murmured, a decadent thrill shooting through her body as he exhaled in a hot burst.
“You know this is probably a bad idea.”
She lifted one shoulder, her T-shirt shushing against his skin. “Unless it’s a great idea.”
Still, Gamble didn’t budge. “A lot has gone down in the last few days.”
“You’re not really going to give me the whole let’s-not-do-this-on-impulse line, are you?” Kennedy asked. She pulled back, but only far enough to arch a brow before adding, “Look, I’ll grant that today has been emotional, and that the foreseeable future isn’t going to be a skip through the park. But I don’t make decisions I can’t live with, and I don’t think you do, either.”
“I don’t,” he said, his glittering stare backing the claim one hundred percent. “But I still need the words.”
Heat rushed through her blood, making her even bolder than usual. “What is it you want to hear me say? That I want you to kiss me?”
Gamble’s body tightened, so close to Kennedy’s that she felt the tension vibrating through him like a low, powerful hum, and oh, she fed off of it.
“You want me to tell you, out loud, how badly I want you to take off all my clothes so you can touch me? Wherever you want.” She paused to let one corner of her mouth kick up in suggestion. “However you want.”
A muscle flexed over his jawline, his gaze dropping to her naughty smile for just a heartbeat before he demanded, “Keep talking.”
“You need me to say that I’ve been aching for you to fuck me ever since you put your hands on me in the supply closet the other night? That everything you want to give me, I want to give back even more?”
“Kennedy.”
It was a warning. Or maybe a benediction. Either way, she said, “Because I do. I want all of that. I want you to kiss me, and I want to let you touch me. I want your cock inside my body, so hot and dirty and deep, I can’t tell where you end and I begin. I want you to make me come so hard that I forget my name, then I want you to do it again, to be sure I remember yours. And I want it. Right. Now.”
She hadn’t even stopped speaking before Gamble moved, closing the space between them in a rush. Their bodies slammed together—sweet Jesus, he was perfect, all hard muscles and harder grip on her shoulders—and Kennedy let him guide her roughly backward until she found purchase against the nearest wall.
“Ah,” she gasped against his mouth, trying fiercely to ground herself amid all the wildly intense sensations pumping through her brain and body.
Gamble showed her no mercy. Parting her lips with a sweep of his tongue, his demand for her mouth quickly became a claiming. He held her in place, palms wide over her shoulders, his huge frame as unyielding as the wall at her back, and kissed her deeply. Kennedy returned the kiss with matching intensity at first, but all too soon, she realized Gamble wasn’t about to let go of the control he wore like a shadow. She arched into his touch, letting him take what he needed from their kiss, letting him give her what she needed, and every movement, every press and slide and lick, made her own desire coil tighter between her thighs.
“So soft. Your mouth is so…” Gamble trailed off in favor of tasting her lips with another brush of his tongue. For a hot second, she surrendered to the glide, but God, Kennedy wanted more, and she tightened her fingers around the top of his jeans to haul him even closer.
“Are we doing this here?” she asked, her voice so husky with need that she almost didn’t recognize it as belonging to her.
Gamble’s smile pressed against the tender spot where her jaw met her neck, making her nipples tighten. “Are you asking if I want to fuck you standing up in my front hallway?”
If he was trying to turn her on with his directness, it was totally working out in his favor. Not that she wasn’t going to go for turnabout as fair play.
Kennedy released her hold on the denim around his hips, creating just enough space to deliver a brash-as-hell stare as she looked at him. “It’s a yes or no question, Lieutenant.”
He didn’t look away. Didn’t hesitate, or even blink. Just reached down and pulled her shirt over her head in one seamless yank.
“Does that answer your yes or no question, Ms. Matthews?” he asked, tossing the cotton to the floorboards.
Unwilling to trust her throat to do anything other than loosen a moan, Kennedy nodded, but of course, Gamble wasn’t done. His fingers found the button and zipper on her jeans, freeing them both and pulling the denim just low enough to expose the tissue-thin fabric of her thong before he hooked his hands beneath her arms and lifted her off her feet.
Looked like her traitorous throat was going to have its way with that moan, after all. “Ohhh,” Kennedy breathed, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist out of pure instinct. He guided her back against the wall for leverage, using his hands—which were now splayed wide over her ass—and the strong, corded frame of his hips to balance out the rest of her body weight.
“That’s more like it,” he said, a bolt of provocative want blooming deep between her legs as the hard length of his cock notched over her pussy. Gamble’s words scraped between them as if every syllable had been coated in gravel, the rough edges a perfect fit for the uncut intensity on his face. The overhead light in the foyer was the only one that appeared to be on in the main living space, and it illuminated the evening shadows spilling in from the eighth-floor windows she could see, just barely, in the main room over his shoulder. His muscles bunched and released as he held her in place against the wall, his skin surprisingly soft despite the bulk of the body it covered.
He pressed his mouth to her neck, both of them now perfectly in line. Kennedy turned her head to the side to grant him easier access, and every inch of her body begged for the touch of his insanely wicked mouth.
“Please,” she murmured, and although she didn’t have the breath or the brain cells to elaborate on exactly what she wanted, Gamble gave in to her plea, regardless. Trailing a path of suggestive, open-mouthed kisses up the column of her neck, he made his way toward the hinge of her jaw. His movements slowed without losing any of their intensity as he ran his tongue over her earlobe, tugging the studded flesh between his lips before moving higher, to the sensitive piercings around the top outer edge of her ear.
Heat unfolded in Kennedy’s belly, settling low and heavy between her legs. The piercings—which had hurt like a sonofabitch when she’d received them—made her hyperaware of sensation in a way she hadn’t been before, to the point that even light contact with them could set off sparks of pleasure/pain. But this? With Gamble’s mouth applying just the right amount of pressure on her over-sensitive skin?
Holy hell, she could come from the feel of that alone.
She tightened her grip on Gamble’s shoulders, and he got the message, loud and goddamned clear. He worked the shell of her ear with masterful swirls and flicks of his tongue, pausing to linger in every spot that made her breath hitch in her chest. Wetness gathered behind her thong, quickly turning the thin satin damp where it clung to her body, and her clit pulsed from both the feel of his mouth and the slide of the fabric below.
More. More. She needed more.
She needed him.
“Okay, baby. I’ve got you,” Gamble said, and Kennedy realized, too late, that she must’ve made the demand out loud. He shifted his mouth from her ear, and she mourned the loss of the sexy contact…right up until he gave her a glittering stare more palpable, more intense, than any touch.
He meant what he said. It might just be for tonight, but he had her.
And in this moment, right here and now, despite all the toughness of her usual armor, she wanted nothing more than to let him.
Loosening one hand from his shoulder, she reached between them, sliding the strap of her bra lower, until the black, satiny ribbon draped over the tattoo covering her bicep. The ink traveled upward toward her shoulder, the swirling watercolor design drifting over her collarbone and the back of her shoulder, and Gamble traced it with his eyes.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured. Reflexively, she wanted to tell him he didn’t need to sweet-talk her—she’d meant what she’d said about being certain of her consent, and she didn’t want to pretend tonight meant something that it didn’t. But his honesty flashed in his stare, stripping down the pleasantries to leave behind only the truth. He took her in slowly, as if time not only didn’t matter, but it wasn’t even a thing, as if he wasn’t holding her up against a wall in the middle of his hallway and his rock-hard cock wasn’t throbbing against the hottest, most needy part of her. He dipped his chin, the rasp of his beard making Kennedy shudder as he kissed everything he’d just learned with his eyes—her shoulder, her collarbone, the indent beneath her throat. He paused over the tiny silver anchor pendant resting there before moving to the flat of her upper chest. Her heart slammed so hard and so fast that he had to be able to see it moving beneath her skin, but God, she didn’t care. Gamble rounded his shoulders, using the leverage of his hands and his hips to lift her slightly higher at the same time she bowed up to meet his mouth.
“Ah.”
The sound ripped from her throat, more desire than actual word. Gamble parted his lips over her nipple, pulling the fabric-covered tip into the heat of his mouth just once before releasing her to edge past her already-loosened bra with a tilt of his chin. Kennedy strained upward, desperate for his touch. But he was right there, closing his lips around her without the barrier of her bra in the way, and her pussy clenched as her breath shot out in a gasp.
“There you are,” Gamble said. His mouth hovered over her nipple, so close that his exhale sent a shiver laddering up her spine. He closed the space a second later, turning slow, firm circles with his tongue until she was sure she’d fly out of her skin. Her body felt too tight for the sensations coursing through it, and she let go of Gamble’s shoulder again in favor of cupping her breast while he sucked and kissed and licked. The nails on her opposite hand curved into his other shoulder, hard enough that Kennedy fleetingly wondered if he was bothered by the sting. But he worked her nipple even harder in reply, moving his lips and tongue in a steady rhythm, and when his hips joined in? All thoughts of anything other than her bright, desperate need to shatter were lost.
“Show me,” Gamble ground out, moving his hips against hers in a punishing thrust. “Fucking show me how pretty you are when you come undone. I’ll be right here to help put you back together.”
Kennedy tried to hold on, she really did. But the friction f
rom his mouth on her nipple and his jeans on the want-soaked satin now pressed hard between her legs left her too full of dark, greedy need that she gave in. Her climax exploded from deep between her hips, so many sensations crashing through her that, for a second—or a minute or a month or a year, for all she knew—she was unable to do anything other than simply let them have their way with her. Finally, when the last wave subsided, she realized that, while Gamble had slowed his movements and dialed back on the intensity of his touch, his hold on her was still steady and unyielding.
A good thing, since she was pretty much a no-go in the able-to-use-her-limbs department.
The shift in her body weight a second later brought her synapses back online, lickety-split. “Whoa,” she murmured, her eyelids fluttering in a trio of rapid-fire blinks as her senses scrambled to adjust to the fact that Gamble had pulled her away from the wall and was carrying her further into his apartment.
“Where are we going?” Kennedy asked, a smile hanging in her voice as her post-orgasm endorphins kicked in, good and hard.
Gamble didn’t break stride as he answered, “My bed.”
Her endorphins were strong enough to lead her smile into a full-blown laugh. “I thought you liked the idea of fucking me standing up in your front hallway.”
He crossed the threshold into a tidy bedroom, carrying her to the foot of the perfectly made king-sized bed before lowering her to her feet. “That was before I watched you come. Now, I’m going to do so much more than take you quick and dirty. Now”—he raked a stare over her in the dusky shadows of his bedroom—“I want you to come for me like that all fucking night.”
Kennedy pressed up to kiss him in reply. His hands coasted over her as his mouth searched hers, his strong, adept fingers sliding under the straps of her bra and finding the closure between her shoulder blades. Gamble took a second to look at her, his gaze hooded in a way that tempted her to lay waste to their clothes and let him take her quick and dirty after all. But he was doing what she’d told him she wanted—taking off her clothes to touch her—and while giving up control had never been her thing, the raw hunger on his face made Kennedy realize the truth.
Down Deep_A Station Seventeen Engine Novel Page 16
