Up in Smoke

by Tessa Bailey

  Jesus. Jesus. So hot and tight. Can’t stay still. Have to stay still and make sure she’s all right. How can I stop? Want to fuck her. Need to fuck her. Now.

  Erin’s stillness cut through the raging impulses commanding him to take. Take hard. He searched the reflection of her face and found her eyes closed tight, her hands trembling on the window still. Not okay. She’s not okay.

  “Sweetheart, listen to me.” His voice didn’t even sound like him, but thankfully her eyes opened anyway. Trained on him with a trust and hope that called to the protector inside of him. Her protector. “Focus on the fire escape. Look. It’s just beyond the window. How many steps would it take you to get to the street?”

  She licked her lips. “Twenty-two.”

  “That’s right.” Her inner walls clenched around him and he bit back a curse. There was nothing he could do to stop his hips from rolling, pushing deeper. She moaned, but the sound of pleasure was tinged with an apprehension that tore at his chest. “Erin, I want to be your escape. Can you let me be that for a little while?”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “Then I stop.” His words were spoken beside her ear, concise and firm. “No matter what. No matter how far we get, I’ll stop. You’re more important.”

  Their gazes held in the window for a few beats, the uncertainty draining from her expression to be replaced with awe. She pulled away slightly, then worked herself back down on his cock with a gasp. “Oh my God, Connor,” she choked out. “You feel so good.”

  His hands squeezed the wooden frame until blisters abraded his palms. Don’t touch, just feel her. Let her feel you. Already, he wanted to erupt, could have come just from the sight of her gorgeous, upturned ass and splayed thighs, so he closed his eyes. Big mistake. It only amplified the sensation of her slowly riding up and down his length, testing him, getting used to his size. It only made her little sobs of surprise and pleasure sound like cannons firing off around him. He couldn’t stand still anymore; the animal he kept leashed inside wanted to roar to life and take over.

  “Are you ready for the rest of it yet?” he rasped.

  She slid halfway down his cock and back up. “The rest of it?”

  Connor growled as he plunged the entire way inside her. “Goddammit, Erin. That’s what you asked for, now you’ll take it.” He pulled out and drove home again, drowning in her cries. “Jesus, you fuck-tight girl, I can’t even move. Open your legs wider for it.”

  Erin only hesitated a second before sliding her feet wider on the floor. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

  “I’ll only stop if you ask me to.” He gave her a hard thrust. “But I’m going to make sure you don’t want to. Going to make sure you come so hard you crawl back begging for it next time.”

  With his hands braced on the window frame and Erin bent forward, the only part of their bodies that touched was where they connected. It didn’t feel like it, though. Christ, not at all. If she was plastered against him, he couldn’t have felt any closer. Her gaze found his in the window as he increased the rhythm of his drives. She looked overcome, delirious. It made him want to complete that phase and send her straight into oblivion.

  “Harder,” she screamed. “Please.”

  Afraid if he went hard as he could, her head would go through the window, he gave her a sharp order to stand up. As soon as her back hit his chest, he walked her to the wall just beside the window and shoved her up against it, his cock still buried deep inside her. “You’re still right beside the window, sweetheart. You just have to say the word.”

  “Okay.” She released a shaky breath, shifted her hips. “M-move, Connor.”

  He laid his palms flat on the wall so she could see them, let his mouth hover just above her ear. “You feel how hard you made my dick? It’s been craving this tight, wet heaven between your legs.” He pushed high and deep, bringing her up on her toes. “Tell me it’s mine. Tell me it’s. All. Mine.”

  She clawed at the wall, thighs writhing against his. “Yours,” she grated. “Yours.”

  “That’s it, sweetheart. Wiggle around and make it harder.” His palms slipped on the wall as they were starting to sweat. He couldn’t hold back anymore. A growl ripped from his throat as his hips started to piston of their own accord. Her feet came completely off the ground as he slammed into her, again and again, pushing her higher against the wall. “Listen to me, Erin. I’m about to drain myself into your hot little pussy. And I will still stop. Because I don’t want to fuck you like this once. I want to wreck you over and over again. I’ll do whatever it takes to achieve that.” He wedged her against the wall and dropped his hips to thrust at a different angle, memorizing the way she cried out in response. “Is it too much, Erin? If it is, you tell me. That’s a goddamn order.”

  “If you stop I’ll die,” she breathed, seconds before her muscles tightened against him and she began shaking. “Holy shit, holy shit. Connor.”

  Her hands flew backward to wrap around his neck, dragging his face down for a kiss. The way she stroked his tongue with her own, body still rocking on his cock as she orgasmed, sent him spinning into climax. He moaned loudly into her mouth as his own relief blasted through him. He pressed her to the wall one final time, pushing his draining erection as deep as it would go. Giving her everything.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Erin existed inside a kind of stunned void. Her breath sounded like wind funneling in her ears, her pulse pounding in so many parts of her body, she felt like she might break apart. But that would be impossible because she’d already done that. If she looked down, her body would be lying in a broken heap on the floor. Floor. The floor. She couldn’t feel it. Was she floating?

  Can’t run. Wall in front of her…and behind her? Can’t move.

  Wood rubbed with fresh pine invaded her consciousness. A sweaty mass of muscle pressing against her back. It wasn’t a wall behind her. Connor. Just her Connor.

  What he’d done to her body…she could hardly comprehend it. Her entire life she’d gone without receiving actual satisfaction from another person’s body. God, “satisfaction” was such a weak word for what had just happened. He’d changed her. Introduced the two sides of herself to each other, like one might do with two strangers. There had been anxiety in the beginning, but he’d obliterated it with lust. Heat. Understanding. It was so much to comprehend when her body felt drained and exultant at the same time.

  She still sucked in oxygen so quickly that her throat burned. Relief had begun to filter in, but not enough. She needed to touch down. Stand on her own feet. Without the thrill of pleasure to distract her, the feel of Connor moving inside her, awareness started to take root. “L-let me down. Just…”

  Immediately, the warm strength of Connor went missing. It left her so cold, she had to fight the urge to order him back. Her body slid down the wall, allowing her to stumble toward the window. She pressed her cheek against it and continued trying to catch her breath. Heat at her elbow told her Connor was standing there.

  His concern was so palpable, she could feel it without looking at him. “Talk to me, Erin.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She took stock of her surroundings, waited for the impulse to flee, but it didn’t come. It didn’t come. This was exactly where she wanted to be. Her gaze flew to Connor’s. Such intensity poured from him, she didn’t know whether to soar or collapse under the heaviness of it. Soar. She wanted to soar. He’d made her soar. Without another thought, she launched herself at him. His arms stayed at his sides even though she could sense it took a shit-ton of restraint. She couldn’t get close enough to him. Her body climbed his, reveling in the smell of his skin, the life of him.

  “Thank God,” he chanted, letting her kiss his shoulders, his face. “Thank God. Thank God.”

  “I’m really fine. I mean…I-I don’t know when or if I’ll be okay with hands. Your hands. But I never thought.” She buried her face in his damp neck and sucked in his scent. “I never thought.”

  He walked bac
kward and sat down in a chair, taking her with him. For the first time, weakness in her limbs didn’t feel like a disadvantage. Or letting her guard down. No, she felt safe. Always safe with him. She wanted him to feel the same way with her, but she couldn’t form the words so she squeezed him tight in an attempt to express it. This didn’t feel like her triumph alone, but something they’d accomplished together. Something she’d never thought possible.

  The blinding wave of emotion carried words that wouldn’t be held inside any longer. “It wasn’t always this bad. The noise…the panic was there, but I could still move. I didn’t freeze up and turn useless when someone touched me. It was like a bee sting I could ignore. Or try to.” Connor had gone still beneath her, but he didn’t say anything to encourage her. Just stayed silent like she needed. “My mother didn’t plan on dying. If she had, I hope…I don’t think…she would have left me with my stepfather. I don’t remember everything, but I remember the fighting. Them acting like strangers.”

  Connor sucked in a breath, like he was bracing himself.

  “The first time I acted out at school, he put me in the closet for two days. I don’t even remember what I did…pulled a fire alarm to get out of a test or something.” She threw up a mental block against the feeling of being trapped that first time. The confusion. “I stopped making trouble after that, but it didn’t matter. Out of sight was out of mind for him. It took nothing…nothing, and I’d be in the closet. Longer each time.”

  She’d started missing so much school, it hadn’t been worth going back at a certain point. Too many missed classes, failed tests. Catching up would have been impossible. Once, a guidance counselor had visited the house. She’d screamed herself hoarse throughout the morning so she couldn’t even call out to the woman. Like one of those nightmares where your vocal cords have been cut. Through the closet door, she’d heard her stepfather explain that she’d gone to live with her mother. A mother she could barely remember anymore through the terror she faced every day. A mother who had been dead and gone for months.

  “When I finally broke out…” The familiar surge of ease washed over her as it always did when she remembered her ability to escape. “I stayed away awhile. Went to prison the first time. When I went back, I burned his house down while he slept in the back room. There was this noise in my head…it drove me. I couldn’t see anything but the flames and it felt so good to have that control burning in my hands, you know? I thought he died. He didn’t.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t die,” Connor’s hard voice broke in. Beneath her, his massive chest heaved. “I’d hate to lose the opportunity to kill him myself.”

  It was tempting to let herself curl up and bask in his anger on her behalf. It felt foreign yet wonderful to have someone on her side. But she needed to get the rest out. Purge it. Make him understand what he was signing on for. “After I escaped the first time from Dade and they sent me back…I had a target on my back with the guards. They left me in the hole for a long time. It could have been a day or a month. I don’t know.” She blew out a breath. “I don’t even remember what I was like before I went in. It broke me.”

  “No, it didn’t. You’re whole. You survived.” He cut himself off and Erin got the feeling he was composing himself. “I can’t think of you down there in the dark. I can’t.”

  She traced his collarbone with her lips while considering his words. “Maybe my stepfather can’t be killed. Even if he can, the fear he’s put in me, the fear the guards put in me, won’t go away. Never completely.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Bolstering her courage, she told him the worst of it. “They have no proof I set the fire, but he knows. He wants to put me away, Connor. Institutionalize me.” He didn’t respond. What did the silence mean? “Sometimes I think that’s where I belong.”

  “No.” He pulled back, his green eyes drilling into hers. “You belong with me.”

  Her lungs emptied of oxygen. There was something in his expression. Or lack of something, maybe. Shock…horror? “You knew about this?”

  “Yes, I knew. I needed to identify the threat.” He stared at a spot over her head. “After you left the meeting this morning, I talked to Derek about locating your stepfather. I want to give you your freedom, sweetheart, like I know you need. But I can’t sit around wondering if someone will stop you from coming back to me.”

  She should have been outraged that he’d gone behind her back. Should have jumped off his lap and flipped over a table or something. Instead, she stayed put. If there were a threat against Connor, she would do the same thing. Identify and eliminate the problem. It was how people like them worked. “So you’ve known I’m a candidate for a padded cell and wanted me anyway? Maybe you do love crazy pussy.”

  “Don’t call yourself crazy.” His voice deepened. “And don’t talk to me about your pussy until I’ve built up my self-discipline again. We do this right. Every damn time.”

  Heat prickled her skin. God, she’d hooked up with some kind of man. A naughty part of her wanted to push him, knew he would find command over himself one way or another, but she wasn’t finished with her story. It needed to be out in the open. “I’m rich, Connor. Really fucking rich.” He frowned at her. “Your manly frown lines tell me you didn’t know that part.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Erin nodded. “My mother was a gambler. A shitty one. But she got a break toward the end.” She slipped her fingers into his hair and ran her nails along his scalp. “Somehow she got motivated enough to put it into a trust until I turned twenty-five. And I turned twenty-five two weeks ago.” She watched Connor struggle to listen while she toyed with his hair, dragged her dampened lips across his. “I haven’t touched it…wouldn’t know what to do with that much cash. But my stepfather would. He legally adopted me when he married my mother. He’s my sole family member. If he succeeds in institutionalizing me, he’ll have control of the money. That’s why he won’t give up. Won’t stop coming for me.”

  Connor’s gaze sharpened, along with his breath. Her nearness was getting to him. Between her thighs, he’d grown huge and hard again. He visibly shook himself, but couldn’t hide the hunger. “I won’t let it happen.”

  “I know, baby,” she purred against his ear, flicking the lobe with her tongue. “I won’t let anything happen to you, either.”

  “Erin, please.” His head fell back, putting his strong throat on display. Rock-hard, solid male between her legs, naked and ready. She still wore everything but her panties, but that could be easily fixed. With steady hands, she found the hem of her shirt and removed it. Connor’s Adam’s apple bobbed, but he didn’t look. “You picked a bad time to fuck, sweetheart. I’m feeling protective as hell right now. Someone wants to take what’s mine, someone hurt what’s mine, and my head isn’t on straight yet. Might never be.”

  She dragged her open mouth up his throat, over his chin. “Let me do the work this time,” she whispered at his lips. “You fucked me, now I’m going to fuck you back.”

  Connor’s growl vibrated his chest. “Get to it, then. I know what you feel like now and that makes me goddamn impatient. Cram me inside your wet pussy or I’ll put you on the ground and use your mouth.”

  His rough language kicked up a cloud of lust so thick, it almost enveloped her. She reached behind her and found his straining cock. They both cursed as she led his thickness through her sensitive folds and sank down on top of it. With gravity weighing her down on his filling arousal, all her weight pressing down, she took a minute to savor.

  “I said move,” he grated. His hand came down hard on her right buttock with a slap, the force of it propelling her forward. Sensation speared her and she screamed, already craving the movement again. Her skin burned where he’d spanked her, but she couldn’t tell if it was the sting or something more. But it hadn’t lessened her desire. Not at all. Connor’s breathing had gone shallow but his eyes were grave, as if he’d done something he couldn’t take back. Something he hadn’t been able to contr
ol. “I warned you. I’m not in check. Mine. Someone wants what’s mine.”

  His possessiveness reached out and claimed her. Made her desperate to possess him, too. Most of all, it filled her with determination to obliterate that uncertainty she saw in his eyes. Show him he’d done nothing wrong by obeying his instincts. That the violence he kept tightly leashed inside him didn’t extend to her. Burn for me, Connor. She gripped the back of the chair in her hands and wedged her heels against the sides.

  She rode him hard. After the first buck of her hips, Connor grabbed on to the edges of the seat and fell back, moaning at the ceiling. Power infiltrated every cell in her body like some mind-altering drug, urging her faster and faster. Every time she felt her body tighten and ready for orgasm, she’d switch tactics, bouncing on his rigid dick one minute and rolling at a downward angle the next. Her ass slapped against his sweaty thighs, mingling with her whimpers.

  His head came up, eyes blazing with ownership as they watched her breasts shake. “Already know what I like, don’t you? When I let you lead, you lead hard.” He started to pump into her with rough upward thrusts of his hips. “You’re going to make me live for a single stroke of that tight pussy, aren’t you? Make me get out of bed just for that hot squeeze every day. Make me work to keep it happy. I’ll work. I’ll work you until you cry for it.”

  Her flesh still oversensitive from the last orgasm he’d given her, she couldn’t prevent the contractions any longer. They seemed to come from everywhere, all over her body, but centered between her thighs where he continued to enter her faster and faster until the slapslapslapslap sound wrenched his name free from her throat and she hurtled into relief so vast it hurt. “Connor.”

  “Hold on to me.” She clutched his shoulders a second before he stood, his hardness unyielding inside her, lengthening her climax until she wasn’t sure where one ended and another began. Her ass hit the kitchen table. He rammed himself deep on a growl and held himself there, pumping his hips slowly as heat flooded inside her. “All for you, Erin. I keep it all for you. This is the only place I come now. Deep inside you where only I can reach. Nowhere else.”