He had lowered himself to the ground in front of me, eyes looking up at me almost reverently for a long moment before his hand reached out, snagging my panties at the front, slowly lowering them down my legs, helping me keep my balance as I stepped out of them.
I thought he would go slow, kiss up my thighs, drag it out impossibly long, make me beg for it.
But his hand grabbed the underside of my knee, lifting up, pinning it to the wall again, exposing me to him fully. And before I could even register the change in position again, his mouth was on me, lips closing around my clit as his tongue explored it, found the rhythm that made my hands go into his short hair, curling, holding him to me in case he got any ideas of trying to pull away, to deny me what was promised just moments before.
But if there was anything you could know about Kai, it was that he was a man of his word.
He didn't even try to drag it out.
He found what I liked and did it relentlessly, almost savagely, not even caring that my thighs were shaking so hard that I wasn't sure they could hold me much longer, not trying to slowly drive me to the cliff.
No he tossed me there, then grabbed a hold, and shoved me over.
It felt like that this time.
Like free-falling.
Like a moment of soaring nothingness until I slammed down into it, the impact ripping everything from me - my thoughts, my insecurities, my usual quietness.
All I knew as the pleasure started to ease was that my throat hurt like I had been screaming, my body felt slick, trembly, overwrought.
It was then that Kai kissed over my thighs, up my belly, slowly getting up, running his cheek over my breast before taking my nipple into his mouth, sucking it, working it with his tongue. Then moving across my chest to continue the beautiful torment.
Then, just as slowly, up between my breasts, tongue tracing my clavicle, then lips whispering up the side of my neck, teeth gently snagging my earlobe before his lips found mine again, softer, teasingly sweet, so gentle and unassuming that it took me by surprise when I felt the weight in my breasts again, the heaviness in my belly, the tightening in my core.
So caught up in the sensations, I hadn't realized he was driving me up to the edge again in the most unassuming way possible.
My breath quickening, my hands moved down his back, grabbing the hem of his tee, slowly pulling it, watching as his arms lifted, allowing me to free him of it. My palms flattened on his shoulders, gaze holding his for as long as I could, wanting to see the pleasure in him like he had seen in me, but soon I couldn't keep my eyes on his, and watched as my hands moved over his chest, tracing the gentle indentations of muscles beneath his smooth skin, delighting in the way they tensed under my touch. My fingers met the waistband of his jeans, anticipation making my skin electric as I worked the button and zipper free.
I took a deep breath as the backs of my knuckles grazed his boxer briefs, forcing my fingers to stay trained on their task as I pushed my hands toward the back, holding onto the waistbands with hooked thumbs so my other fingers were free to graze over his ass on the way down, my gaze rising to see heat in his eyes and the smallest of sexy smirks on his lips.
He didn't get a chance to step out of the legs.
I couldn't seem to contain my urge to give back, to show him even a hint of what he had shown to me twice already. So I lowered down to my knees in front of him, looking up to see him looking down at me, pure hunger overtaking his face. My hands went out, grabbing the material of his boxer briefs, pulling it wide as I pulled it down, watching as his cock came into view, thick, demanding, promising fulfillment.
But not yet.
Even if my sex was pulsing almost painfully at the idea of having him inside me.
Right now was all for him.
As soon as the material fell away, my gaze went back up, wanting to watch his reaction as my hand closed around the base of his cock, and my tongue moved out to trace over the head, lapping up the bead of precum there.
His air hissed out as his hand slammed into the wall, bracing himself as he watched me as my lips went around him, drawing him in inch by inch, feeling him grow thicker still as I started to work him, feeling the way his body tensed, his hand curled into my hair, his breath shuddered out of him.
Just when I was sure I was going to taste his release - an idea that sent a thrill through my body, suddenly the grip in my hair increased, yanking, pulling until I had no choice but to lose him, to rise to my feet to ease the sting.
He moved so fast that I could hardly catch it as he slammed me back against the wall, bent to retrieve his wallet, pulled out a condom, and protected us. I swear it happened at warp speed, before I could even register the ease of the sting at my scalp, he had finished those tasks, reached down to yank up my knee, slamming it back against the wall, then thrusting inside me, deep, hard, claiming every inch of me in the span of a blink, making a choked whimper escape me at the invasion, at the perfect way he filled me.
"Jules." My name seemed to claw its way out of him, deep, needy, primal, and something within me called back to the sound.
He had stilled within me, buried deep, and my hand rose, moving to frame his jaw, waiting for his eyes to open as he took a steadying breath.
"All yours," I reminded him, my leg breaking free, moving to curl around his back, holding him to me as I ground down on him, needing the motion more than I had needed anything else in my life.
His eyes went soft for a short second, full of everything that had happened over the years, all the hopes, fears, disappointments, and finally... triumphs.
His lips claimed mine again, hard, hungry, demanding. Mine, in turn, became the same as my walls tightened around him, begged for release.
His cock withdrew, and his lips broke from mine as he slammed back inside me, eyes so intense it was almost unsettling. "All yours," he told me, starting to thrust - hard, fast, needy, proof of how long he had waited for this, how much he needed it.
His hand went down, snagging my other knee, dragging it around his waist, his hands going to my ass, using it to make me take him deeper each time, slamming me down on him as he thrust inside, the near violence of it all driving me up faster than ever before.
I felt my walls close around him like a vice grip, that suspended nothingness overtaking me, promising oblivion once it floated away.
"Come for me, Jules," he demanded, eyes watching me as he kept thrusting, refusing to let the orgasm ebb. "There," he growled as my walls started spasming, as my voice caught on a moan. "That feels good," he added, voice rough trying to come out of his clenched jaw.
"Kai," I whimpered as another wave came on the tail-end of the first.
And that was his undoing as well.
Her thrust harder for a couple seconds, slamming deep, jerking hard upward as a shudder racked his body.
"Jules," he hissed out as he buried his head in my neck, his body pressing mine into the wall as he fought for control of himself.
His breathing had barely leveled out before his hands cupped my ass harder, as he walked back toward the chair, dropping down with me on top of him, both of us too overwhelmed to do anything but be there, hold each other, come to grips with what had just happened.
I seemed to be the one to recover first, feeling my heart rate return to normal, my breathing settle back into is usual rhythm.
My lips pressed a kiss into his neck before I pushed back a few inches, watching as his eyes opened slowly, something in their depths I didn't know how to interpret.
"Are you alright?" I asked, feeling my heart sink a bit, hearing old ugly words spoken from a mean-hearted man fill my head, sucking up the pool of confidence I had felt with Kai.
He sucked in a deep breath as his hand moved up, tucking my hair behind my ear gently. "Ever have a dream come true, Jules? A big one. The one that has been on your mind almost obsessively for a long time?"
I swallowed hard, realizing the truth.
"No."
"Me either. U
ntil tonight," he told me just as my heart was ready to shrink to nothing at the idea of his dream being crushed by reality. He shook his head for a second, like he wasn't quite sure it had happened after all. "It was better than I could have imagined. You're better than I could have ever imagined. The reality surpasses the dream. I didn't know that was possible."
I felt the telltale sting in my eyes, blinking hard, not sure why I was feeling so emotional. I never felt emotional.
"Stop," I whispered, shaking my head.
"Never," he told me as one of the tears snuck out, sliding down my cheek. His thumb moved out, catching it, before pulling me forward, taking my lips again, slow, deep, full of the emotion thick in the air around us. And I didn't even bother trying to stop the other tears as they fell.
Happy tears.
They were a new concept for me.
But there was no denying their existence.
He kissed me until my lips felt swollen and sensitive, letting me finally rest my head against his shoulder as his hands moved up to sift through my hair.
It was a long time before he spoke. When he did, he was Kai. The Kai I had known every day for years. Sweet. Light.
"Alright, the silence is killing me," he declared. "What's going on in there?" He didn't miss the way I snorted a little, feeling caught. "What?" he demanded, giving a bit of my hair a playful tug.
"It's just..."
"What?" he demanded when I trailed off.
"Miller was telling me about this really amazing eggplant parm that you make and..."
His laugh cut me off, happy, carefree, so Kai that I felt it again. My chest tightening. But this time, it was accompanied by something else, something new. A swelling feeling in my heart.
"You want to come back to my place so I can cook for you?" he asked as I pushed back, finding him smiling easily, eyes bright.
"And watch Criminal Intent," I added.
"And watch Criminal Intent," he agreed.
"Then maybe..."
"Maybe what?"
"You can show me your bedroom," I suggested.
His eyes went gooey at that, making my belly do the same. "I think I can manage that."
With that, we both hopped up, getting back into our clothes, mine feeling oddly scratchy, maybe because my skin was more sensitive, begging for more contact.
I moved back out into the reception area, powering down my computer, realizing this was the first time since, well, ever, that I was leaving with work on my desk that still needed to be done, with a mini kitchen that still needed to be stocked.
And, quite honestly, I couldn't have cared less.
Because I was going home with Kai.
I grabbed a note Quin had left me for supplies he needed picked up on my way into work the next day, opening my wallet to tuck it in.
And another note caught my attention.
Kai's note.
The one with his alarm code on it.
The code that sounded so familiar, but I hadn't been able to remember why before.
It wasn't a code.
It was a date.
Exactly thirty-six months and twenty-one days ago.
And I finally knew what that date was...
-
Flashback - 36 months and 21 days before -
He hadn't known why Quin had called him in. His office wasn't even fully finished yet, even if business was up and running. He'd been a bit of a late addition, had been hard to track down as he bounced around Europe, staying in hostels with people on pilgrimages to find themselves.
But he must have needed him if he was having him come in.
So he reached for the handle of the door, pulling it open, walking into the reception area - all dark and streamlined everything. Quin had never seemed to shake that military minimalistic thing. He liked things neat and predictable.
Kai wasn't sure how they were going to get along. No one would ever really accuse him of being something such as neat. He worked better with messes around, seemed to think more clearly when he was rummaging around for a missing file. It was when his best ideas came to him.
But Quin wanted him, so he must have been ready to put up with that. Kai figured he would be fine with it so long as his mess stayed within the confines of his office.
He would make sure it did.
He knew better than to mess up an offer like this, to let down a man like Quin.
Because Quinton Baird was, well, a particular kind of person - severe, very rational, and he expected perfection.
It said something that he wanted him on his team.
The lineup was impressive.
Smith, Finn, Lincoln, and Ranger had all served around the same time, had brushed shoulders, knew each other by skills and reputation.
Miller hadn't served, but had been in the hard life for a lot longer than any of the rest of the team, had needed to claw her way out of her past, fingernails bloodied and body bruised. It should have made her bitter and mean, but while she was sometimes a bit aloof and blunt, she was relatively stable, funny, easy going.
He had a feeling they would get along well given some time.
So the fact that Quin wanted him to join his team of all of them, it was an honor, a privilege. One that came with a great health plan and a 401k. Which he really didn't need thanks to the almost laughably large salary he was promised.
After bouncing around for so long, never making any really tight connections with anyone, he thought it would be good to put down some roots, to create some lasting friendships, to do what he did - not just because he was good at it - but because it secured him a safe future.
He was getting a little old for hostels.
Or at least that was how it felt when he was surrounded by kids taking gap years from college to go find themselves.
Besides, he would be around people who were in the lifestyle, who wouldn't look at him weird when he told them that he, essentially, was a sweet-talking adrenaline junkie for a living.
That wouldn't be weird to this team of cleaners and middle men and negotiators and babysitters and generals and fixers and ghosts.
The office was silent save for the blowing of the air and the quiet tones of voices toward the end of the hall.
He would know Quin's voice anywhere.
It sounded like the other voice was a woman.
Not sure if he was supposed to join or not, he hung back at the reception desk, hauling himself up on it, waiting.
The door to Quin's office opened, bringing the voices out in the main space.
Definitely Quin.
And definitely a woman.
As if to further prove that point, he could hear the steady click of heels on the hard floor as they approached.
The smile he had been ready to give them froze and fell from his face as they emerged from the hall, moved into his line of sight.
And he realized that he would always remember this day, this date.
It would be burned in his memory forever.
Because it was the day he met her.
EPILOGUE
Jules - 1 day
"What are you doing?" Kai's voice asked, still slow and rough from sleep, a sound I never could have known would be so sexy, but now did. "Did you go to the store already?" he asked, taking in the plastic bags littering the counter.
He moved around to face me, shirt off, pants slung low, eyes only halfway functioning.
And my chest did it again.
Tightened.
And, what's more, something else.
Something within me growled out Mine.
Mine.
He was mine.
Entirely.
I had never felt possessiveness before, never had a need to possess something - someone - so entirely.
"Are any stores even open this early?" he asked, glancing at the clock readout on the stove.
Six-fifteen.
"Walmart is twenty-four hours," I reminded him. "I just needed a few things to tackle... this," I declared, waving
an arm at his junk drawer.
"Tackle it," he repeated, brain clearly a little slow in the morning. How he got going without coffee was beyond me.
"Organize it," I clarified.
"It's a junk drawer."
"Yeah?"
"Junk drawers aren't supposed to be organized," he informed me like this was somehow common knowledge. And if it was, then the human collective was crazy. If you needed to find birthday candles, wouldn't it be better to have them right there in a designated spot instead of having to rifle through fifteen other things before you found them? Likely half-crushed?
"Well... be that as it may, yours is going to be. It woke me up in the middle of the night, Kai. It was calling to me, taunting me with its clutter."
To that, he seemed to lose his sleep, face cracking into a grin as he let out a small chuckle.
"Then an organized junk drawer we shall have. But you get to explain it to everyone if they ask."
"Ask. About a junk drawer? Your friends really struggle to find topics of conversation, huh? What... oh," I let off on a small moan as he came to me, dragging my body to his, sealing his lips to mine.
I felt myself melting into him, my lips becoming demanding, needy, even though we had had each other three times the night before until our bodies just refused to do anything other than sleep.
Insatiable.
That was how to describe me now.
With Kai.
"Only you would lose sleep over a cluttered drawer," he declared after breaking the kiss, pressing his forehead to mine.
"What if I needed a wrench in an emergency?" I asked, digging in the drawer to find the item in question.
"A wrench emergency, huh?" he asked, lips twitching, trying not to laugh at me. "Have you had coffee yet?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. I'd been in too big a rush to get to the store. I knew I wanted to get organizers, get the mess contained properly, then get to work at least a little early, knowing I had left things unfinished the night before.
"Don't worry," he said, brushing my hip as he moved past. He did that a lot. Even just in the eight-ish hours we had technically been together. He always touched me. Like he needed confirmation that I was there. He had no idea how stuck with me he was now. Now that I understood the feeling in my chest, could call it what it was, even just to myself for now. Something I had never experienced with anyone else, something that was his alone. "I will jump in the shower while you organize," he added as I heard water running to fill the coffee maker. "Then we can both head in to finish what you didn't get to last night."
The Messenger (Professionals Book 3) Page 21
