Chapter Twenty-Seven
Harley
Harley’s head fell back and her spine bowed off the bed, lightning dancing across her skin. She forgot how to exhale, how to unclench her fists, how to do anything but spread her legs wider and give herself up completely to the magic of Clay’s mouth between her legs.
The man had proven that he could bring the pain, but now he reminded her that he could also deliver breathless pleasure, the kind of solid gold, drenched in sunshine bliss that made a body forget there had ever been a time when it didn’t feel this fucking good. Her breath shuddered out as his tongue flicked back and forth across her clit before he drove the thick muscle into where she was so hot and wet, so swollen and desperate with wanting she wasn’t sure she would ever be the same.
“You taste like heaven.” Clay cupped her bottom in his hands, his fingertips digging into her ass as he leveraged her closer, giving his wicked mouth unimpeded access.
He licked and sucked and fucked her with his tongue, driving deep and hard while his moans vibrated her clit. Her body coiled like a spring—tighter and tighter, sharper and sharper—until ecstasy cut through her like a knife, severing the ties holding her to the earth. She shattered, heels digging into the mattress as she reached between her legs and fisted thick handfuls of Clay’s hair, holding him close as she rocked against his amazing mouth, riding out the waves of the kind of orgasm she hadn’t thought she would ever experience again.
By the time she sagged back onto the mattress, her bones had turned to liquid. She offered no resistance as Clay rolled her onto her side and lay down behind her. His hand cupped her thigh, pulling her leg up and back until it was leveraged on top of his and her legs were spread wide enough for him to push into her from behind.
She moaned, arching back as his thick cock speared inside her, spreading her inner walls wide, wider, until she was stretched almost to the point of pain. Her nerve endings sparked electric and she knew she could come again if she let herself, simply from this one agonizingly slow thrust that demanded her complete surrender.
“So beautiful,” Clay murmured as his hands found her breasts, kneading and plucking at her nipples as he rolled over onto his back, taking her with him.
Soon she was spread on top of him, one of his hands still tormenting her nipples while the other dipped between her legs to tease her clit and his cock worked in and out, driving her swiftly out of her mind.
“I love this view,” he said, his breath hot on her neck. “I love looking down and seeing nothing but you. But us.” He pinched her nipple, summoning a gasp from her throat and more heat rushing from the swollen place between her legs.
Clay thrust in hard and deep and she rolled her hips in response, again and again, rocking the head of his cock against the ignition switch deep inside of her. Her breath hitched, but she fought the urge to catch fire, conscious of the fact that he was bare inside of her.
“Condom,” she breathed though a part of her couldn’t care less about the damned condom.
A part of her wanted him bare, spilling himself inside her, taking a chance on making another Jasper. Another child with his eyes and her stubborn curiosity and pieces of both of them living in harmony, proving they could make beautiful things together.
“It’s okay,” he said, staying buried deep. “I’ll pull out if I get close. I won’t lose control tonight, I promise. And I’m not going to go until you come on my cock at least twice.”
His hand flattened on her abdomen, pinning her in place as he rocked deeper, each thrust bringing her clit into contact with his fingers, building the tension swelling inside of her to the breaking point.
“God, Clay,” she gasped, writhing on top of him as she got closer, closer, and his cock seemed to swell even thicker inside of her. “It’s so fucking good.”
“The best,” he said, squeezing her thigh hard, the hint of pain making the pleasure crest within her. “There’s no one like you. I could fuck you forever and never get enough.”
His words sent her over. Her back arched as she came, her second orgasm swimming through her veins like electric honey, but Clay wrapped his arms around her and held tight, stroking slow and deep until he’d guided her back to earth and halfway up the next mountain.
“Please,” she said, fingernails digging into his lightly furred thighs. “I want to see you, taste you.”
With a groan, Clay pulled out and slid from beneath her. A moment later, he was on top, his muscled torso filling her vision as he reached down, gripping his engorged cock and guiding it back to her entrance.
This time, he glided inside without a hint of resistance. She was so wet, so eager, so ready for every long, thick inch of him.
“You’re the only thing I could never quit,” he said, kissing her with the words as he began to move again, those same luxuriously slow thrusts that made her already pleasure-sated body hum for more. “I tried to end it the second time we went walking on the beach when I realized there was no way I could be friends with someone I wanted the way I wanted you. But I couldn’t make myself do it. Not even to do what was right by my best friend.”
She threaded her fingers through his hair, holding his gaze as he slid a hand beneath her hips, lifting her off the bed, forcing his cock even deeper into her body. So deep there was nothing but him, nothing but the way they moved together and the things he made her feel and the wild hunger only he had ever sparked to life inside of her.
“I wish it had only been you,” she said, wrapping her legs around his hips as his thrusts came faster. “I wish I’d been smart enough to know that this was the only thing worth fighting for.”
A pained expression flashed across his features, but before she could say another word, his mouth crashed into hers.
He staked a claim, his tongue gliding deep, imprinting his taste on her soul as he took her hard and fast. He slammed to the end of her, the head of his cock ramming against her cervix, sending a sharp jolt of pleasure-pain coursing through her with every thrust, summoning grunts and groans and other sounds she’d never heard from her lips.
She was wild, unashamed, and so wet she could feel her own sticky heat dripping down her thighs, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care that she was a hot, shameless, mess. This was the way sex was meant to be, rough and raw and sharp to the touch and so hot the sheets felt like they might catch fire.
“I want to come inside you,” Clay growled against her lips as his rhythm grew feverish, wild. “I want to come so hard inside you.”
She whimpered, knowing she should tell him no.
But fuck, she wanted it, too. Wanted it even more when his fingers found her nipple and rolled it in tight circles, bringing her perilously close to the edge for a third time.
“I want to push in so hard and deep and feel you milk me dry,” he said, slamming home again and again. “God, come for me, Harley. Come on my cock. I need to feel you go one more time.”
She cried out as her walls began to convulse around him, clutching so tight it felt like her soul was turning inside out. He answered her with a masculine roar that made her pussy clutch even tighter as he rammed home one last time before he pulled out to come in thick, hot jets onto her stomach.
He gripped his cock, breath hissing out through his teeth as he worked his jerking shaft up and down, sending more creamy white spilling out onto her skin. The sight was insanely hot—and pulling out had been the sane thing to do—but Harley couldn’t help the flash of disappointment that prickled through her.
The animal in her didn’t want Clay’s release on her belly, it wanted it inside her, filling her up, marking her, making her his.
His.
As he leaned down, pressing a kiss to her lips, before whispering—“I’ll be right back with something to clean up”—she felt like his. And when he returned with a damp cloth to gently wipe the stickiness from her belly and from between her legs, she felt closer to him than she had to anyone in so long.
She reached out, capturing his wrist before he could head back into the bathroom. “Stay.”
His lips twitched, but a smile didn’t form. “I was just going to put this in the dirty clothes basket.”
“Throw it on the floor,” she said, tightening her grip on his arm. “And come back to bed.”
“All right.” He let the rag fall onto the carpet and climbed onto the bed beside her, propping up on the pillows and pulling her into his arms.
She rested her hands on his chest and propped her chin on top, looking up at his face. It was getting darker in the bedroom, but there was still enough light to see the soft set of his mouth and the easiness in his eyes. “This is the most relaxed I’ve ever seen you.”
His lips twitched again. “Sex is the best medicine.”
“Sex with you,” she said, knowing now wasn’t the time to play games. Now was the time for truth and taking one last, crazy shot at happiness, even if it was a long one. “It’s never been like this for me with anyone else. Even years after I thought you’d died, when the worst of the grieving was over, that part of me never came back to life. Never. Until now.”
“It’s so fucking good,” Clay said softly, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “But it’s also bad, Harley. Sex and violence never existed on the same plane in my head until we were together on the island. That first day, when I let my anger get the better of me…”
He shifted haunted eyes to hers. “I scared myself. I’ve never wanted to hurt a woman and fuck her at the same time. And then suddenly, I did, and it scared the shit out of me. Worse, it made me wonder what kind of man I really am.”
She let her fingers play back and forth through the crisp blond hairs on his chest. “They always say there’s a thin line between love and hate.”
“There’s also a thin line between a cop and a criminal,” he said, his brows drawing together. “I already crossed that line once. I can’t afford a second slip, and I don’t want to revisit those fucked up places in my head. I don’t want to be that person ever again, not even for another minute.”
“You don’t have to be.” She brushed the hair from his forehead, needing to touch him, to find a way to bring him back to the here and now. “We can put everything that happened on the island behind us and start fresh. We can be good together again.”
“Were we ever good together?” Clay pulled away, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Six years ago we were living a lie—or at least you were—and now we’re both different people. You’re in deep with a drug lord, and I’m never going to be able to look at your throat and not think about that moment when I had my hand around it, squeezing the life out of you because I’d lost my mind to the hate you made me feel.”
“You had every reason to hate me.” Harley wrapped her arms around him from behind, her bare breasts flattening against his back. “I forgive you for that. I forgive you for everything. All you have to do is forgive me and we can make this work. I know we can.”
Clay sighed, but she pushed on before he could speak, “Because you’re right, we are different people. We’re people who have hurt and lost and grieved enough to know better than to give up on something real. And this is real.” She moved her hand to cover his heart, taking comfort in its steady beating. “Can’t you feel it?”
His hand covered hers, warm against her cool skin, pressing her fingers closer to his chest. “I do. But all the rest of the shit is real, too—Marlowe and the past and everything we put each other through. We can’t exist in a vacuum, Harley. That’s not the way the world works, no matter how much we might want it to.”
“But maybe it’s the way love works,” she said, tears rising in her eyes.
A small voice inside of her demanded to know where the hell her pride had gone, but she didn’t care about pride. Pride didn’t make her feel alive or hopeful or cared for; Clay did.
“I love you,” she whispered, her tears spilling out to dampen his skin. “Even when I started hating you, I still loved you.”
He cursed, but when he turned to her, there were tears in his eyes, too.
He didn’t say a word to give her hope, but he gave her something better to do than plead for second chances that might never come. He gave her his kiss and his hands bringing her body to life. He made love to her again, sweet and wicked and close, and by the time they were finished, she was too exhausted to do anything but curl against him and fall asleep.
She had planned to sleep with Jasper tonight—to make sure he was safe and close in case Clay got any ideas about breaking his promises—but she wasn’t feeling suspicious anymore. She was sated and sad and desperate for a reason to believe that this didn’t have to be the last time she ever felt Clay’s skin warm against hers.
She slept hard and dreamt of a world where happy endings weren’t just for dreamers and people lucky enough not to have been dealt a shitty hand in life. And then she woke up alone in Clay’s big bed in the too-quiet apartment with a dry mouth and a pounding head and immediately knew that something was wrong.
Every hair on her body stood on end and a primitive voice deep inside of her shouted to get her ass out of bed.
Now. Quick. Before precious things were lost.
But even before she threw on her pajamas and stumbled into Jasper’s room, fighting the sluggish feeling lingering in her limbs, she knew that he was gone. He was gone, along with his suitcase, his keeper toy collection, and his father, who had vanished without a trace except for a note on the kitchen island with two words written in hasty script—
I’m sorry.
With a wounded cry, Harley staggered to her bedroom, terror making her break into a sweat despite the chill lingering in the apartment. She changed into the first clothes she grabbed from the top of her suitcase, snatched her purse from the hook on the door with shaking hands, and less than a minute later, she was out of the apartment and sprinting down the stairs.
She was going to find them. She wasn’t going to be too late.
She was going to find Clay before he made it out of the country with her son and then she would make the bastard sorry he had ever been born. She would make him sorry and then she would take Jasper and they would run far away from all the liars in the world.
And once they were safe and sound, she would leak Clay’s confession and pray to God he went to jail for the rest of his miserable life.
Harley burst into the alley, the servant door creaking loudly behind her, and raced across the cobblestones. She was so focused on reaching a main thoroughfare and getting a taxi to the airport that she didn’t notice the tall man in the black jacket until she was halfway down the block.
Thankfully, the man was on the phone and the dull roar of early morning traffic covered the sound of her footsteps. He didn’t seem to hear her racing up the alleyway and when she recognized his profile, she had enough time to duck behind one of the false pillars on the building’s edifice before he turned, nodding to a man in a brown flat cap emerging from the bakery behind him.
Harley flattened herself against the cold stones, blood turning to ice in her veins.
She knew the man in the cap. It had been nearly two years since she’d been in the same room with Marlowe—or Liam, his right-hand man—but his wasn’t the kind of face you forgot. It was the kind of face that turned dreams into nightmares and assured you all of your carefully thought-out plans were about to turn to shit in your hands.
Marlowe had found her. He must know that she and Jasper were hiding in this apartment building and it was only dumb luck that she hadn’t woken up to him standing over her bed with a gun in his hand.
Harley squeezed her fingers into fists at her sides, thoughts racing as she tried to figure out what to do next. She was about to make a break for the other end of the alley—to see if she could slip by whomever Marlowe had stationed there without being caught—when the soft whup-whup-whup sound thrumming below the traffic din became a louder whomp-whomp-whomp.
She looked up, catching sight of a small black helicopter hovering above the skyline, slowing as it neared their corner of the city and realized several things at once—
1. Clay and Jasper weren’t on their way to the airport; they were up on the roof, waiting for that helicopter to come carry them away.
2. Marlowe might not know his prey was on the run now, but it wouldn’t take him long to figure it out—the penthouse was the only apartment with access to the roof or the landing pad.
3. She had maybe two minutes to get up to the roof and warn Clay and Jasper before all hell broke loose.
Not wasting another second, Harley darted out of her hiding place, hugging the shadows as she moved swiftly and quietly back the way she’d come.
She slipped into the servant’s entrance unseen, locked the door behind her, and started up the stairs at a sprint, praying harder than she’d prayed in years that she would make it to the roof in time.