by Zoe Hill
Not tonight.
Nothing, but an orgasm is going to fix the situation I’m in right now.
Can I really do this to myself without freaking out?
“I’m coming,” Poppy gasps around Seb’s grip on her throat. Peering at me in the dim light, she asks, “Are you?”
Her raspy breathing picks up pace when she tilts her head further back so I can see the swell of her tits. With the gun at her head acting as a backdrop to the pure carnality lighting up her face, Poppy appears both dangerous and endangered. Turned on beyond reason by this contradiction, I grip my hard dick and work my hand up and down my length. The dirty feeling that invades me whenever I inadvertently think about sex begins to populate on the edge of my consciousness, but Poppy distracts me from them when she cries out, and her hips buck like she’s possessed.
My hand stops at the head of my cock when her body stiffens, then shakes. Watching her, I squeeze myself hard. Too hard. Too tight. Yet the pain adds to my overall need to climax. I move my hips and pump my hand furiously until my frenzied need catches up with Poppy’s. As she starts moving again, she keeps her eyes on mine and bites down on her bottom lip. Ecstasy builds in my groin as our connection makes me wish I was the one inside her.
I mutter a curse when my dick pulses in my grasp every time she cries out.
“Jesus Christ. Fuck. Poppy,” I groan from between gritted teeth. Climaxing hard as Poppy begins to shake from head to toe from her own orgasm, I keep my eyes open as long as I can to watch her come. Her entire body convulses as if she’s being electrocuted and the most beautiful moan escapes from between her swollen lips. It pushes me over the edge and my eyesight tunnels in on itself as I stroke myself until my dick is spent, and my knees are shaking.
“Was that good for you, flower girl?” I was so lost in the moment that I’d all but forgotten Seb existed. After dropping the pistol on top of the beer keg next to the one Poppy is sprawled over, he steps away to dump his condom in the dumpster on the opposite side of the alley. Breathing hard, I drop my gaze from Poppy’s as embarrassment begins to invade my psyche. Seb’s presence has ripped me back to reality and I pull my hand out of my pants with a grimace. The sticky dampness on my hand is a reminder of my irrational response to the woman who’s currently battling her own demons if the wild panic in her eyes is any indication.
As I grapple with my growing mortification, Seb pulls Poppy upright, then attempts to tighten the laces at the waistband of her pants. When she slaps his hands away, he throws his arms in the air and splutters, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Poppy snaps. She gestures to the door that leads back into the pub. Pasting a blatantly fake smile on her face, she adds in a softer voice, “I just need a minute. Please, Seb. Just give me a second to get my head back together.”
“I can’t leave you out here by yourself,” he argues. “It’s not safe. Plus, we need to talk. This changes things between us... I’m the man you need now.”
When Poppy touches one of the red marks on her neck, I see that her hands are shaking. “Fine, we’ll talk when we get back to the compound. But for now, I need to be alone. Send Bella out here if you have to... I just—I can’t look at you right now.”
Seb opens his mouth to reason with her, but he stops himself. I skulk deeper into my hiding spot and wait for them to get this lover’s tiff over with, so I can creep back to my Bentley to clean myself up. Poppy is acting like she’s on the verge of a breakdown, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t too far behind her. I don’t know what overcame me.
All I know is this woman is dangerous to me.
First, she touches me without setting off the fire beneath my skin, then she wakes up my previously useless dick.
Forget her and Seb needing space... I need to put distance between me and Poppy Tennyson so I can sort my head out. I was sent to kill her, yet all I’ve done is allow her to seep into my mind and now my body.
“I think you should calm down, flower girl.” Seb flinches when Poppy scowls at him, then he holds his hands up once more. “All right. All right. I’ll get Bella.”
He hurries inside. The moment the door closes behind him, Poppy is on the move. She strides over to my position in the shadows and grabs my hand. Yanking me out into the light, she shakes her head and purses her lips.
“I knew you were a dark one,” she declares. As footsteps approach from inside the bar, she lifts her chin in the direction of the main road. As I take her hand, I thank my lucky stars for black pants that hide wet patches and luxuriate in the lack of burn from our contact as we walk toward the end of the alley. “From one fucked up soul to another, you might want to be a bit stealthier next time you wanna get your voyeur on. I heard you coming a mile away. You’re just lucky that Seb suffers from erection-induced deafness or he would’ve kicked your ass.”
Her declaration leaves me speechless. A voyeur? I open my mouth to defend myself, then close it. What can I say, she caught me red-handed? I’m guilty, as charged.
“You better go,” Poppy advises after she glances behind us. She seems a lot steadier on her feet than she was in the bar before. Seems like coming has a sobering effect on her.
“Go on,” she scolds me when I don’t move immediately. Standing on her tiptoes, she brushes her thumb over my lips, then pats my cheek. “Off you go.”
Reluctantly letting go of her hand, I steal one last look at her. Despite her bravado, I can see that she’s as wrecked as I am from what just happened. The desperation in her voice when she issued her ultimatum to Seb wasn’t caused by a normal sexual kink.
It was created by despair.
She needed him to hurt her so she could climax.
Her drunk admission from back in the bar rings in my ears. It finally makes sense. I’d bet good money that Poppy Tennyson has a past similar to mine. She’s just broken by it in a different way than me.
Is that why she can touch me without setting off my haphephobia?
Maybe my shattered psyche recognizes a kindred soul in her.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask her, even though we barely know each other.
I lose the opportunity to speak because the door Seb used to go back inside is opened, and her stunning, Amazonian friend emerges. I incline my head when my eyes meet Sabella Archimedes’ curious gaze, then wander down the alleyway toward the road.
“Be safe, Spenser,” Poppy whispers after me. “And, thank you. The world’s too judgmental sometimes, so stolen moments like these should be cherished.”
Choked up by her stark admission and unable to speak, I lift my hand to acknowledge her heartbreaking declaration.
“Who was that?” Bella asks.
“No one?” Poppy stammers, her voice rising an octave as she speaks.
The uncertainty in her voice makes me smile.
She mightn’t be sure who I am right now, but she will be shortly.
I am officially intrigued by Poppy in a way that I haven’t been before in my life.
The absence of my symptoms around her is a miracle, but what just happened in the alleyway was God-given. Sent from a guardian angel, a divine apology for my pain and suffering, or Satan’s attempt to lure me deeper into the dark side, I don’t care. The way she makes me feel is soul changing. Soul sustaining. Soul healing.
I want everything Poppy Tennyson has to offer.
I deserve it.
This job has officially morphed from an obligation into an obsession.
TEN
“A mistake is a lesson, not a loss. It is a temporary, necessary detour, not a dead end.” ~Marco Pile~
POPPY
“Oh, dancing Queen,” a loud voice yells straight in my ear. Snorting, I swat at the interloper, then burrow deeper under the blankets. “It’s time to go. We have work, and you have to deal with Chelsea goddamn Vertes without punching her.”
The covers are yanked off me and my bare ass is slapped. It stings. I yelp. She laughs.
“Go away. I’m drunk.�
�� After one peek at Bella from beneath my eyelashes results in a lightning bolt of pain shooting through my temples, I screw them shut and roll into a ball. She slaps my butt again. Keeping my eyes closed, I dive toward the other side of the bed to get away from her. I collide with another naked body. This one is much hairier than mine. With a gasp, I reopen my eyes and spring upright. “What the hell! Why are you in here? Get out of my bed.”
My ex-fiancé rolls over. His lips twitch as he fights back a smile. Winking, he remarks, “You know why I’m here, flower girl. You’ll be feelin’ me for the rest of the week.”
Ignoring his innuendo and the memories that start flaring in my mind’s eye with his snarky prediction, I try to hit him with a fierce look, but end up battling a bout of dizziness that’s trying to make me vomit. Seb shifts closer, and in spite of my nauseated state, a ripple of desire spears me between the legs. He really is the perfect male specimen. Naturally muscled and inordinately strong, Seb has always been a walking incarnation of my taste in men. As my gaze strays lower, I notice that he’s sporting morning wood. It juts straight up, proud as punch and ready for action. I bunch the sheets with my hands to stop myself from licking my lips in front of him.
Good God, what in the porn star hell is wrong with me? As my brain fights my body for control, I remind myself that he doesn’t need any more encouragement from me right now. Tamping down on my unruly clit and attempting to engage my brain, I try to think of a way to fix my mistake from last night without hurting Seb more than I already have.
“Well, look at this,” Bella exclaims in a disbelieving voice. She slaps my shoulder, snapping me out of my stupor. “You see each other for the first time in two years and end up back in bed? There’s a word for this... I believe it begins with co and ends with dependency.”
Locking eyes with Seb, I wait for him to say something rude to her. Rather than being offended, he seems amused. I drop his gaze to my lap and wrings my hands. Bella clears her throat, but I can’t look at her because the last thing I need is for Bella to see my internal conflict. She’ll know straightaway how I feel about this and it’s highly likely she’ll upset Seb when she comes to my defense.
After toying with him last night, I owe him a private apology. Facts are facts, no matter how stupid they make me feel. I mishandled our encounter last night and it’s up to me to find the words to make amends.
“I guess I should leave you two to it.” Bella breaks the silence that’s dawned. Her tone is noticeably threaded with badly concealed worry, so I keep my eyes down. I don’t deserve her assistance with this mess, and I can’t allow her to rationalize my mistake for me. When I don’t answer, she glides her way to the door, throwing her final comments over her shoulder as she goes. “We need to leave within forty-five minutes. I have to grab some things from the apartment before work and we obviously need to talk.”
Without acknowledging Bella, Seb reaches to the floor and drags the covers back over us. Although he lays back down once the door is shut, I remain sitting. Every time I move, the dull, needy ache between my legs makes my guilt flare a little more. I screwed up last night—literally—and regret is choking me. Fucking Seb again wasn’t sensible. Doing it in an alleyway and taunting him with a gun until he lost control was irresponsible and mean as hell. We broke up because he wasn’t comfortable treating me the way I wanted. It’s not fair to ask him to change himself to fit my impulses.
“Don’t,” he whispers. Stroking my cheek, he captures my chin and uses his grip to make me look at him. “I won’t allow you to turn this into something bad.”
“I’m not.”
Seb’s blue eyes twinkle with pure love and I swallow down the words of apology that I want to lob at him to assuage my conscience. “Yeah, you are. I know you, flower girl. Right now, you’re blaming yourself for making me do something that I didn’t want to. So, I’m going to tell you straight up that your regrets are bullshit. I was an active participant in everything that happened last night. The alley. The workbench in the bike shed. This bed. Every time I fucked you last night... every time I choked you and spanked you and bit you... I got off on it too. Things changed when you tossed me out. I found my own version of therapy, and it helped me understand you. I’m ready to be the man you need. I don’t want to fix you anymore. I love you the way you are...”
He trails off when he notices that I have tears silently running over my cheeks. God, I’m an asshole. I’ve twisted this wonderful man until he doesn’t even recognize himself anymore. Regret lodges in my throat and blocks any hope I had of finding the right words to explain how sorry I am that he has the wrong impression of what last night meant.
Seb holds his arms open. When I don’t immediately scramble forward, he gathers me into one of his patented bear hugs. Although I remain stiff, he presses our bodies together, tangles our limbs and rests his forehead on mine. Holding my breath, so I don’t inadvertently send the wrong message by moving against him, I search my useless brain for the words to form an appropriate response to his confession.
To be frank, his change in attitude is hard to understand. Every word he just said echoes the sentiments I screamed at him two years ago. At the time, he had shouted that I needed to see someone to straighten out my head. To fix me. Hearing his true thoughts about me had given me the strength I’d required to go through with ending our relationship.
Hearing him say the opposite now simply accelerates my confusion to warp speed.
Because he hadn’t loved me unconditionally back then.
How can I trust that he’s going to love my broken bits now?
I search his face for signs that he’s lying. No matter how hard I look, I can’t find anything but the truth on his face. Finishing his own examination of me, Seb smiles. It has a sad sheen to it, which he clarifies a moment later. “Ollie was helping me plan how to win you back. He knew you best, so it was only natural that I asked him for advice. I had a big speech planned for your mom’s fiftieth birthday weekend in a month. Was gonna take you for a ride, kidnap you if I had to, and declare that I was finally the man you needed me to be... of course, that all went to shit when... well, you know....”
“I know. He’s gone now.”
Pushing me onto my back, Seb crawls over me and nudges my thighs apart with his knee. I allow my legs to fall open, even as my heart screams at me to stop him. What I can remember of last night is telling me that he’s overstating how much he’s changed sexually. Hell, he didn’t want to bite me, let alone hurt me. Even the efforts he’d made after I urged him to manhandle me were lukewarm at best... until I pulled my gun.
The reason I came so hard and so fast was because I’d spotted the beautiful man from the bar sneaking up the alleyway to watch us. Watching him pleasure himself to the sight of me get fucked had pushed me over the edge. I’d given in to my impulse and, as enjoyable as it had been, I’d regretted letting Seb inside me the second I’d come back down to earth.
There are black holes in my memory for the other times we were intimate last night. The last thing I can recall is chatting with Spenser in the alley then heading back inside with Bella with the intention of making an excuse so I could chase down Spenser to ask for his number. Visions of Seb passing me a beer, and of me trying to get out of drinking it by telling him I needed to go to the bathroom assail me before my mind becomes blank.
I can’t remember anything past returning to the bar from the alleyway.
A squiggly feeling invades my stomach when Seb holds me in place and pushes his hard cock inside of me.
“Seb, please—”
“Shut up,” Seb commands over my weak attempt to stop him as he snakes his hand from my hip to my breast. He palms my flesh, then pinches my nipple. Gasping, I shake my head while I try to find the words to turn him down without shattering his feelings after he’s just laid his heart on the line. “Do you need more?”
Before I can respond, Seb seizes hold of my throat and squeezes. It’s too hard, too much, too soon. I’m
not ready for this. I don’t want this. I try to speak, but my words come out as an unintelligible croak. Moving inside me with damning intent, he drops his head to my shoulder and bites his way along my collar bone. I flatten my back, closing my legs tight around him to hamper his thrusting hips and try to pull away from him. Seb moves with me, caging me with his body as his bites reduce to nibbles, and then sloppy kisses.
“I love you, flower girl.” The honesty in his words makes my soul weep. I’ve fucked up so bad. He thinks this is what I want. Doing my best to ignore the way his touch covers my skin with an invisible film of regret and pollutes my psyche with bad memories, I screw my eyes shut and let my legs fall open again. My heart pounds in my ears as I mentally remind myself that I only have to get through these next few minutes. Once this is over, I can head back to New York with Bella, and she can help me come up with a way to let him down softly.
Seb kisses me once more. “Can’t believe you’re mine again.”
He presses kisses down the side of my neck, moving within me until I slap my hands against his shoulders and push. Lifting his face from the crook of my neck to look me in the eye, Seb frowns when I find my voice and demand in a rush, “Get off me. Please. I’m sorry if I—”
Mashing his hand over my lips and nose, he stops me from speaking. Two sharp thrusts later, his warm breath rushes over my face as he leans closer and murmurs, “Stop it, flower girl. You don’t need to ask... I know what you need.”
My breathing is hampered by his palm. Squirming in his embrace, I slap at his shoulders, fighting furiously from below his big body as he pistons into me with an intensity and speed that hurts. I wriggle up the bed until I slip out from under his hand. As I gulp in a huge breath, Seb wrestles me back under control. I haven’t managed to drag in enough oxygen to scream before his hand is back over my mouth, and he smothers my face with sloppy kisses as he holds me still, so he can impale my body with his cock.
