Chapter 21

“So,” I say. “You might have an apartment.”

I’m happy for her. Of course I’m happy for her. She took a body blow with that bullshit from Harris and Mia, and she needs to get back on her feet.

She nods.

She looks so beautiful right now. Her hair’s down around her face, soft and sleek, and she’s got a bright glow under her skin.

I take alpha male pride in having put that glow on her. And yeah, thinking about exactly how I put that glow on her makes me ready to do it again. Like right now.

She was so fucking hot last night. Moaning into my mouth, talking dirty, tight as a glove around me, coming so sweetly. Later, having my mouth on her again—no one tastes or feels like Maddie. And then twice more before morning, each time hotter than the last.

“Finding an apartment is good, right?”

I want her to argue with me, to say, Hell no, not with sex like last night’s on the table.

“Yeah, it’s good.”

Of course it’s fucking good. So why does it feel so bad? It’s not like I thought what happened last night could go on forever. Been there, done that, blown it hard. Given enough time, I would screw it up again.

Better not to give it that much time. Hurts so much less.

Maddie shakes her head. “I probably won’t get it. I’m telling myself I won’t, so I won’t be disappointed when I inevitably lose it.”

She’s saying she’ll be disappointed if she loses the apartment. What, disappointed if she has to stay with me and keep having sex like we had last night? If she has to come so hard her toes cramp?

I put that in my pipe and smoke it, feeling—irritable. “Because it’s hell staying here.”

She looks at me, eyes big and startled. “No! No, that’s not what I meant. You’ve been—great. It’s just—I mean, what your mom said. We should get out of each other’s hair. You can have your social life back—”

She says social life in this way that makes it obvious what she means—sex with lots and lots of women—and I’m pissed. Because she’s okay with that, right? She’s okay with—even advocating for—the possibility of me being able to bring women back here and fuck them, when I can’t imagine being okay with the idea of her having sex with anyone other than me ever again—

Screeeeeeech.

Those are the brakes in my head.

She’s shaking her head. “I’m probably not going to get the apartment. And I’m kind of freaked out about that. I mean, I’ve spent, what, like, twenty hours looking at apartments, and there’s nothing I can bring Gabe into, and when I finally find something that’s halfway decent, someone’s beaten me to it.”

I wrench my head out of my ass and focus on what’s right in front of me, which is Maddie, looking like she’s going to cry again.

I wish she wouldn’t.

I hope she does, because if she does, I will have the excuse I desperately want to put my arms around her and—

And everything. Fucking everything. Bite that amazing, plump lower lip, slide my tongue along hers until she whimpers, eat her mouth until all she can think about is me doing the same thing to her pussy.

“I’m basically homeless right now, Jack—”

Annnnd, once again, I’m an asshole.

I need to be happy for her about this apartment. Because it’s what she wants and needs, because it’s what Gabe needs, and because it’s probably what I need, too. I’m just being selfish, wanting to keep her here for my own deranged, horny purposes, when she could be finding another guy—

Okay, screw that.

Just because I’m not enough of a jerk to outright interfere with her happiness doesn’t mean I’m in a hurry to give up sex with Maddie. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean I want to think about her finding herself a new Big Dick.

“You’re not homeless. You can stay here as long as you need to,” I say. Selfish, maybe, but it’s also true.

She gets that look on her face again. The soft, wrecked one. And now I’m the one who feels like crying. I mean, not a chance in hell I would, but I at least am in the neighborhood of the impulse. So I do what I always do when things get too real. I make a joke. “You don’t even have to have sex with me if you don’t want to.”

The corners of her mouth turn up. Now she looks like mischief. She tilts her head. “So, you’re saying that if I said I was really tired right now and just wanted to go straight to bed…”

“Not a problem.” I wave my hand generously.

“…instead of dragging you into my room and kneeling at your feet and giving you the best head of your life…”

It is very, very hard to get the best of Maddie in any kind of verbal play situation.

It is also just very, very hard. Or getting there, anyway.

Two can play, though, right? “I’d be fine with that.”

She narrows her eyes.

“I’m a big boy,” I say. “I can take care of myself.”

To illustrate, I slide the flat of my hand over the growing bulge behind the fly of my jeans. It is getting pretty uncomfortable in there, but she doesn’t need to know that. She also doesn’t need to know that I’d take the warmth of her mouth over my own right fist in a heartbeat.

Her gaze follows my hand, her eyes dark and avid, but to give her credit, she manages to look pretty nonchalant. “Okay, then.” She shrugs. “Good night, I guess.” And she strolls out of my living room toward her room.

I wait for her to turn back, laughing, but she doesn’t. She goes into her room, pulling the door shut behind her. I race after her and wedge my foot in with just a second to spare.

“Why, Jack!” she says, with mock surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Collecting rent,” I growl, pushing my way into her room and closing the door behind me.

She giggles.

“Seriously, Maddie, you can’t just say shit like that—”

She gives me a super-wide-eyed innocent look. “But Jack, you said you’d be fine on your own!”

“I will,” I say, undoing the top button of my jeans. “You just watch.” And I undo the next few buttons—which is not easy to do, because my dick is so hard behind my fly that I have trouble getting my fingers under the buttons.

Her eyes are glued to the proceedings.

“See?” I ask. “Totally capable of managing this situation.” I push my briefs down, freeing my dick.

Her pupils flare, and her tongue peeks out to wet her lips. My plans call for that tongue to do a lot more than play peekaboo in the next few minutes, but there’s plenty of time for that. I stroke my hand idly down my length, smoothing a drop of pre-cum over the head as I go. I don’t have to fake my groan, which is half from how good it feels to be this hard and half from watching her eyes follow my hand.

“How many strokes do you think it will take me?” I ask her, all casual-like. I push my briefs and jeans a little lower so I can cup my balls and drag my hand back up the whole length. I make that single stroke take a good, long time, and then I play around the head a little while her mouth goes slack.

“One,” I say, a quick, hard thrust into my hand and withdrawal.

It’s not the tightness of my fist or the slickness of the pre-cum or the tease of the count that’s killing me. It’s the expression on her face. She looks like she’s in pain, and it goes straight to my dick.

“Two.”

She sways a little on her feet, leaning toward me.

“God, Maddie,” I say. I have to stop with the strokes and squeeze the base. I was planning to tease her as long as it took, but I think I might be losing at my own game. As if to prove the point, my dick throbs, eking more pleasure out of the squeeze of my fist. It feels so good that for a moment I think I’m going to lose control, just like that, the two of us in this stupid standoff, me with my hand clenched around the base of my dick, not even moving. I can feel the heat high in my chest and face, and if she can’t tell from that how close I am, I’m sure she can see how tight every muscle in my body is at my effort to stay in control of this encounter.

Then she drops to her knees at my feet and we both let out a simultaneous gust of breath. Her mouth caps my fist, surrounding the head of my dick with wet heat.

I swear colorfully. It’s like she just turned the volume up to ten, and I’d thought it was already there.

Then she lets go, tips her head back, and smirks at me. “How’s this for a game? I see how fast I can make you come, and you see how long you can hold out.”

I squeeze against the rush of blood and pleasure, managing not to give myself away with any other sound or reaction. I’ve got this. I’ve totally got this.

Because I pride myself on this very thing. I will never come in a woman’s mouth unless I know she wants me to. And blow jobs, although they’re one of my favorite ways to pass a quiet evening, don’t tend to make me come that easily. I don’t know if it’s that I need more depth, or more friction, or to be free from the threat of teeth, or just to feel more welcome (I’m big, as Maddie noted, and not every woman loves that; I’ve called off quite a few blow jobs midway through because the giver didn’t look like she wanted that much of me in her face, and it’s no fun to be an unwelcome presence).

So whatever, I figure I’m in my element now. Maddie’ll suck and lick to her heart’s content, and when she cries uncle, I’ll win the game and finish us both missionary style.

She licks around the head a few times, curling her tongue in a way that makes it feel like she has two. Okay, so the girl has hops, I’ll give her that. Then she flattens her tongue along the bottom of my dick, so when she moves up and down on me, there’s a whole lot of extra heat and sensation, and suddenly I’m not at all sure I’ve got this.

Now she’s doing both at that same time. How is that even possible? And I’m deep in her mouth, so deep I pull back a little because I’m worried about hurting her or choking her, but when I pull away she grabs my ass. And tugs me closer. My dick feels huge, flush with blood, flooded with sensation from root to tip, and the tide’s rising at the bottom of my spine, in the depths of my gut—

“Maddie, I—”

But I’m coming so hard I can’t stop it and I can’t pull away from her and besides, she’s got both hands on me now and I feel her swallow, like she’s swallowing me, as I’m spurting into her mouth.

“I—didn’t—mean—”

I have to put out a hand to brace myself against the wall, because my legs are about to collapse.

She lets me slide from between her swollen red lips and grins up at me. And laughs at my expression.