Cora
To say dinner was good would have been a serious misuse of the word. Cora was of the opinion that Finn was wasted as a criminal and a car mechanic. Oliver had not exaggerated—the man could cook. A good portion of the evening was spent sitting at the barstools, watching Finn move around the small space while she tried to focus her attentions on helping her brother with homework.
Finn was, she had to admit, efficient. He used every available space and managed to have three pots going without anything spilling over. Cora couldn’t manage that with ramen.
“What does the code of Hammurabi tell us about the class structure in Babylon?” Cora read from the handout that had been tucked between a few chapters of a very worn history book, “Make specific references to at least three of the laws back up your response.”
Oliver pillowed his forehead on the bar and crossed his arms like a wall of teen angst. “I don’t know. What does it matter?”
“It’s pretty important,” Finn spoke up, with a wooden spoon tucked in his golden hand. “I mean, the laws were the basis of Babylonian infrastructure.”
Cora raised her brow and tilted her head to the side out of curiosity. She reached for a glass of wine and took a slow sip before asking, “You know about ancient Mesopotamian law?”
Finn gave a wicked grin. It made her heart do an unexpected bounce inside of her chest. “My profession requires that I be very well-versed in laws.”
Cora rolled her eyes but found herself amused anyway. This whole evening would be a lot simpler if he wasn’t cute. Not just cute, she realized, but smart. There was something devastating about being a little of both. Add in a dash of dangerous, and he was the kind of cocktail that was bound to leave her a little heady. It was best not to dwell.
“Come on, Oliver, you know this.” Finn pushed a glass of cold root beer in Oliver’s direction.
“It tells us they were really screwed up,” Oliver said with his face still buried against his arms.
Cora cupped her chin with her hand, planting her elbow on the island. “I don’t think that answer is academically acceptable.”
“But it’s true.” He looked up, a mechanical pencil in one hand.
“Oh?” she baited him.
“I mean,” Oliver started as he fiddled with the pencil, his thumb clicking the top again and again until a long length of graphite was sticking out of the tip, and then slowly pushing it back in. “The code really covers how the really wealthy guys were pretty big about being treated with respect and stuff, right?”
“What do you mean?” Cora asked, watching Oliver mess with the pencil for the third time. She let him do it. The clicking might not have been her favorite sound, but if it helped him think, more power to him. “I don’t understand.”
“Okay, like there is this one part, it talks about how much it cost a person if their slave got hurt. Like it breaks it all down, but in another part it talks about how if a son hits his dad, he gets his hand cut off. I mean, that’s not exactly fair, is it?”
“No, it’s not. But what does that tell us about the Babylonians?”
“Well, it tells us they had slaves and they were seen as lesser. I mean, there’s that whole eye for an eye thing where it pretty much says that if one dude hurts another dude’s eye, then the guy who got hurt can hurt a person just like he did. So like, if I stabbed Finn in the eye, he could stab me back and it would be fair, but if Finn were my slave…”
Finn glanced up from where he was hand-mashing potatoes. “I’m not? Are you paying me?”
“No,” Oliver said unapologetically, “but it’s not like I’m beating you for leaving lumps in my potatoes either.”
“How nice of you,” Cora drawled.
“But like, if he were my slave and Cora stabbed him in the eye, she’d have to pay me half of what I paid for him. It’s nuts.”
Cora pushed the print out toward Oliver, who dutifully began using his pencil for something other than fiddling with it.
By the time history, math, and English homework was finished, dinner was very nearly ready. It smelled incredible. Finn ladled sauce over the fried pierogis and added a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese over the top.
“I’m going to have to spend an extra twenty minutes on the stationary bike just for smelling this,” Cora said as she pulled a plate toward her.
Oliver, who had already stuffed an entire potato-stuffed dumpling into his mouth, made a grateful sound. “Totally worth it.”
It was. The man had a gift. Cora allowed herself to enjoy an extra helping as they sat around playing an impromptu game of Chase the Ace.
“So,” Finn said partway through their third game, “you gonna tell us about this girl you’ve been seeing?”
Oliver’s cheeks flared a dark rose red. He looked down at his hoodie as if the overly worn pocket was vastly interesting. Cora didn’t know if now was quite the time to bring any of this up, but it was too late to go back now.
“The blonde?” she asked, passing out a single card to each of them. “I think I saw you with her at the pool hall.”
“I…yeah,” he finally said. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. She’s…she’s cool.”
“Yeah?” Cora prompted, lifting her card to see a nine staring back at her. She plopped it to the left and waited.
“What do you want to know?”
Finn held on to his card while Cora and Oliver passed. Oliver sighed as he saw the nine Cora had given over to him. “Her name is Britt. She just moved here.”
“What’s she like?”
Oliver shrugged. “She’s nice.”
Finn and Cora exchanged a look. Nice is what you told someone when you didn’t want to talk about it. Nice was the same word Cora had used to describe several of her high school boyfriends. It wasn’t going to do to push, and she knew it. He’d just pull away.
“All right,” Oliver said after the third round of cards. “I’m going to bed.”
“Night, Hawk,” Finn called as her little brother disappeared into his room.
Cora watched him go. There was a niggling feeling in that spot at the base of her neck, where one bad feeling was warring with another in such a way that she didn’t know exactly what was going on. Teenagers were secretive—that was some sort of social law. Sometimes they got into trouble, too. But Oliver had always been a good kid when they were younger. Was it a girl who was pulling him down a bad path?
When his door closed, Cora shook her head. She’d be here. She’d help and hope he came around.
“You okay?” Finn’s voice broke through her thoughts.
She looked up and saw the biker bad boy sitting across from her. Maybe her brother going down this path had nothing to do with a girl, and everything to do with his obvious hero worship of the tattooed man currently roosting across from her. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine.”
He swung himself out of the seat in an easy way. She realized she was very much alone with Finn. He stood there, looking like he stepped off the cover of a biker magazine. His thumbs were hooked in his belt loops. “I’m going to do the dishes, and then I’ll head out.”
“Let me help,” she offered, feeling suddenly awkward. The easy feeling that had grown between them seemed to have walked out with her brother. “It’s the least I can do after that dinner.”
“It’s not a problem. Didn’t you want to get some time in at the little gym thing they’ve got here?”
“Well…yeah.” She was surprised he had remembered. He was always managing to surprise her somehow, whether it be his random knowledge about the ancient law, his obvious kindness, or his skills at cooking. She wanted him to just be the bad guy, the criminal on a bike who liked to beat people up for some other bad-guy criminal on a bike. It wasn’t so easy anymore.
He waved a tattooed hand at her. “Go on, you’ll have a nice clean kitchen when you get back.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, already taking a step toward her bedroom to change into some workout clothes.
“Well, you do want a man who cooks and cleans, right? Isn’t that what all you hard working women want?” He gave her a wink and set the water running in the sink with a careless flick of his hand. Another move and suds were beginning to bubble up on the water’s surface.
She rolled her eyes and walked to the bedroom, resolutely ignoring how good he would look with soapy arms.
# # #
The time at the gym did her good. Cora liked to work out. It had never been about having thinner thighs or a firm flat belly. Genetics said that without serious time, dieting, and effort (not to mention a very persistent personal trainer), Cora would always have thighs that rubbed together when she walked. She was okay with that. They filled out her skirts better. She worked out so she could think.
There was something about the sensation of blood pounding through her veins as she hit the second mile on the bike that helped her focus. She could pick apart her day and the problems currently irking her and piece them together. Cora invited it now.
Her first problem was Oliver. It seemed to be two steps forward, one step back with him. The hug he had given her made her feel like she was getting somewhere, but his resistance to talk about the girl he obviously liked made her worry. She knew full well how much teenage love could mess with life.
Then there was Finn…and that was a completely different issue. She had to admit she liked him. Yes, he was a criminal and a bit of a womanizer, but clearly that’s not all he was. He knew ancient history and was smart enough to crack jokes about it. He could cook, and he wasn’t completely intimidated by her money. It also helped that he looked like a good girl’s bad-boy wet dream.
Around the fifth mile she felt her mind hit that point of clarity.
Oliver was going to keep secrets. That was perfectly normal. So long as he kept going to school and showed up at his hearing, there was no reason he couldn’t have a private life. Building problems where there didn’t need to be any was borrowing trouble. Her historical issues were not necessarily her brother’s current ones. She filed that problem away as momentarily solved.
What made Finn truly intense was the fact that she was thinking of him as a forbidden thing. The mind (and body) always wanted what it couldn’t have. The fact of the matter was she could have it. He had offered himself to her several times. He was ready and willing. All right, fine. She’d take him up on the offer. She was an unattached adult with a healthy desire for companionship. She’d enjoy him and he would enjoy her and then they’d both move on. There, easily handled.
Now, how to approach it? She pondered it out as she went through a few cool down stretches to keep her body from cramping up. She couldn’t just walk into her apartment and grab him by the crotch. Okay, she very well could. He may even enjoy it, but Cora enjoyed a little easy foreplay before getting to the more hands-on enjoyment.
Slowly, a plan formed in her mind.
When she got back, the kitchen was already clean. Finn had pulled the headband off his forehead and laid it neatly on the now scrubbed countertop. His hair was down. The length of it was nearly triple her own, falling like a wave of night and brushing the waistband of his jeans. She wondered if it was as silken as it looked. He was drying his hands on a cloth.
“Dinner was good,” she said, scrubbing a towel down her face.
“You said that already,” he answered, standing in the middle of the kitchen. “Twice.”
“It deserved it a third time.” She tugged her hair out of the short ponytail she had tossed it into. She knew he watched the short tumble of her hair in much the same way that she had just been watching him. It felt good to be watched. It felt good to be liked. When she could ignore the fact that he was a criminal, Cora liked Finn just fine.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” she told him.
“Should I go?” He shoved an outstretched thumb in the general direction of the front door.
He was giving her an out, and they both knew it. He could walk away right now and nothing would happen. She wasn’t an idiot. Cora knew damn well that if she let him stay, they were going to end up naked. Hell, that was half of her plan.
“Do you like horror movies?” she asked, picking the remote up off the living room table.
Confusion and curiosity mingled on his face. “I’ve been known to enjoy some bloodcurdling screams from time to time.”
“I’m a bit of a fan. There’s a marathon coming on in a few minutes if you want to join me.”
“Will you hold me when the scary parts happen?”
“That’s fair.” She tossed him a grin and the remote before she headed for the shower. She took her time. It wasn’t just that she wanted to be neat and clean for when she finally got naked all over again, but because she wanted him to think about her in the shower. Maybe he wasn’t, but she’d bet a decent amount of her savings he was.
She also chose her loungewear carefully. She didn’t go with the oversize T-shirt and pajama pants that she preferred most evenings. Tonight, she pulled on a dark red satin top that she hadn’t been able to resist buying. At first it looked like a casual button-down business shirt, but when she pulled it on it clung to her breasts, and it would be easy to tell she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. The matching shorts hit her mid-thigh, and would have been demure were it not for the slits that went nearly to her hips.
She gave herself a last look in the mirror, enjoying how rich the color looked against her skin, and then added a short dark satin robe over it to give the illusion of modesty.
“Perfect,” she told her reflection.
When she came out into the living room, he was perched comfortably on one side of the couch. He had tugged his hair into a long braid nearly as thick as her wrist. It swung over one shoulder so he could lay his head against the back of the couch. He was tall enough that his head hung over the back in such a way that he could see her coming down the hallway. His eyes went wide, and his head jerked up.
She walked slowly around the couch and plopped down next to him, rather than on the far side of the couch.
“Comfy?” she asked as she pulled one of the throw pillows closer so she could tuck it beneath her arm and stretch out, putting her legs across his lap.
He gave her a deadpan look. “You’re cute.”
“True,” she shot back.
He smiled and she laughed. The tension broke and he laid his hands over her bare ankles, sitting back once more.
The first movie was one she had seen plenty of times. Her gaze rested on the television as her mind wandered. He didn’t get up, but his hand didn’t venture any farther up her leg either. After their moment at the Deli, she was a little surprised, but happily so. If he wanted her to make the first move, she could provide.
She rested her palms on his shoulders as she swung one leg over his hips, mounting him right there on the couch. He went very, very still beneath her, but it didn’t matter; she could feel his body nearly vibrating with the tightness of a plucked string. His eyes went from their typical sapphire to a dark and stormy blue.
“Cora?” he asked. “Are you sure?”
It surprised her. She had expected him to pounce on her at first opportunity. Now he seemed unsure. “Why not? I want to, Finn. I’ve wanted to this past half a month, and now you are here and I am thinking this is a good idea.”
“I dunno,” he snipped back. “Maybe because you’ve been keeping me at arm’s length since you got here. Sometimes literally.”
Cora shrugged, lifting her weight from him as if to lever herself away. “Well, if you don’t want it…”
It was all he needed. She saw a flurry of emotion flicker across his face, dawning realization followed by frustration, and then finally lust.
“Are you sure?” he asked again. His voice came out as a low hungry growl. It pleased her that he wanted perfect understanding between them.
She closed the scant few inches left between them, pressing the mounds of her breasts to the flatness of his chest. “Oh yes.”
He made a deep sound, and then his mouth crashed against hers. It was both similar and different than the kiss that they had shared beneath the streetlight. This time she was ready for the potent smack of undeniable pleasure that swarmed through her senses. He tasted like sin, and she drank it down. Their mouths slid hungrily over one another, tongues delving wildly between lips until she wondered if she had ever been kissed with such thorough urgency.
He hauled her closer, as if by pulling her against him he could make their clothes melt away. With the heat that rose between them, Cora wouldn’t have been surprised if it actually happened. Her hips thrust forward against his groin, and the satin of her top bunched up, revealing a line of cream-colored skin.
Her fingers danced down the braid that he’d flung over his shoulder. It felt like warm silk against her palm as she undid the locks and let them fall down naturally. “I love your hair,” she whispered, then seized his lower dip between her teeth. He made a guttural sound before slamming their lips together again. Her fingers slid down his bare arms until their hands locked together.
“Off,” he growled between the mating of their mouths. He gripped her nightshirt and ripped it down her back. She heard fabric tearing, the buttons popping off and spilling against the couch. Wildness filled her and bubbled out of her mouth in a heady chuckle as the fabric slithered away.
Hands, hot, rough, and callused, chased down her back, his thumbs moving over the dip of her spine until she shivered.
“Oh, Finn…” She rolled her hips over his crotch until she could feel the thick press of his need against her. She grabbed the back of his head and brought his mouth to hers for a third time. He was like a wine she couldn’t get enough of. The kiss became more battle than pleasure, a wildness of teeth and tongues that left her frenzied and desperate.
His hand splayed across the lowest part of her back, guiding her movements on top of him until they found a rhythm they both enjoyed. She could feel his length pressing against her cleft through their clothing, and she purred against his lips.
“I thought you didn’t want me.”
“Shut up and touch me,” she growled.
He hefted her up as if she weighed no more than a pillow. She hooked her legs around his hips, locking her ankles around his back. She felt every muscle in his back move as he pushed her against the couch. With more need than thought, she gripped the edge of his tank top and tugged it over his head. His hair made a curtain around the pair of them as he laid his body over hers.
Her back met the cheap fabric of the rental couch. He gave her a slow smile, those glorious eyes glittering in amusement as he laid a kiss on her chin, then another on her neck. A third trailed over her collar. His lips parted and she felt the flick of his tongue across her collarbone. Then she felt the first caress of teeth. It wasn’t a bite, not exactly. He was asking her with his mouth if she wanted something a little…rougher.
“Do it,” she groaned.
His mouth dipped lower, until the sun-kissed color of his lips pressed against the swell of one breast. He kissed the mound of it, slowly licking a perfect circle before his teeth dug in. He went slow, slow and steady until it rode the line between pain and pleasure. Her hips lifted up in approval. When he reached the very limit of her enjoyment, she squeezed his shoulder and he released immediately.
“Ohhh yes,” she gasped. “Do it again.”
He did, going back and forth from one breast to the other until she was purring beneath him. Then his mouth went to her nipple. Everything in the world but the pair of them vanished as he worked the rough tip with his tongue. All she could do was revel in the wet pleasure he offered that sensitive peak. Her legs tightened around his hips and her body arched in response, driving herself against him from below.
“God, Cora,” he groaned huskily, releasing one nipple so he could explore the other.
“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” she asked, writhing her body again.
He groaned in response. He wrapped one ardent hand around her hip to hold her in place. When she tried to move again, he dug his fingers in. “Wait,” he said, more plead than demand.
She tilted her head to the side and studied the angular lines of his face. He had closed his eyes and tipped his body away from hers.
She stuck her tongue in her cheek. “Here I thought you were the big tough biker boy”
He opened his eyes to fix her with a blithe look. “Woman.”
“Man,” she shot back.
“Why are you testing my patience?”
She jerked her hip out of his grip and ground her body against his from below. Her ankles tightened around his back so she could dance beneath him. His eyes watched the natural bounce of her chest as she moved. She trailed one hand down her body to cup her mound, gripping it hard enough to make the flesh pucker between her parted digits.
“Because you test mine.”
He made a strangled sound and buried his face against her shoulder and the couch. When he lifted his head his face was rich with masculine desire. “You are too much.”
“Honey,” she whispered back. “I’ve hardly started.”
She let him hold himself above her while she unlinked her ankles. Her mouth began to explore his chest and shoulders with an enthusiasm that could only be called ferocious. It was all tongue and teeth and lips, memorizing the tattoos, the lines, the musculature of him until the arms that held him over her were starting to shake.
“Cora…” He groaned.
“What?”
He looked like he was drowning. “I don’t normally let the woman lead like this.”
“Too bad,” she said, “I only lead.”
“Then tell me what you want, damn it. Let me…let me pleasure you.”
She gave him a long look, sure he was teasing her, but there was something in his gaze, something lost and desperate she couldn’t name. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t going to enjoy this unless he got to pleasure her. Well, that was fascinating.
With alacrity, she laid herself out on the couch and stretched until she filled up the space from one armrest to the other. “Go ahead,” she said, more challenge than anything else. “Explore me.”
He did. His bent his long body over her and slid farther and farther down. The satin curtain of his hair trailed over her bare body as his mouth made a gentle trek across her stomach. He didn’t, as she had assumed he would, go right for the place between her legs. He took his time getting there, drawing little circles with his tongue over every sensitive patch of skin.
“Jesus, Finn,” she muttered as she tried to catch her breath. “Maybe you do know what you’re doing.”
He looked up at her through the obsidian shroud of his hair. “There’s more.”
She sat up and wiggled off the couch. For a moment, he looked dumbstruck as she sauntered away from him and toward her bedroom. His gaze followed her, and when she crooked her finger for him to follow, he vaulted over the couch after her.
She shut the door behind them, and he wrapped his arms around her, gripping the swell of her backside and hauling her close.
“I want you,” he growled.
“Good, because I plan on having you.” She dragged her hands up his back to fist in his hair and tugged until he made a sound and lifted her bodily off the floor. She felt the wild scratch of denim as he carried her to the bed and fell with her to the mattress.
He made quick work of her pajama bottoms, hauling the red fabric down the fullness of her thighs. He banished them to the other side of the room. In moments, she was naked, and he was only halfway there. That didn’t seem at all fair to her.
When she reached for his jeans, he gripped her wrist. “Not yet,” he said, his voice uneven.
“Why not?”
“Because when they come off I will not be able to control myself.”
She ran her tongue over the fullness of her lips “Maybe I want you to lose control. Maybe I want you to be my wild lover.”
“I thought you liked control.”
“I like being in control. Part of that is driving you wild.”
The words made his entire body shiver next to her, and she bent and nipped the curve of his neck as his fingers skimmed heavily over the curve of her hip. “I want you to come first.”
It was the second time he’d alluded to her getting her pleasure first. She wondered what was behind that. Was he the kind of guy who didn’t last long once he got to thrusting? Maybe. But if he really wanted her to get hers first, she certainly wasn’t going to argue.
“How do you want me?”
He told her. She ended up in the center of the bed, lying out on her belly. It wasn’t her favorite position, but she was willing to give him a little in the way of leniency. For a moment, nothing happened; then she felt the bed shift as he straddled the back of her legs, keeping them pinned and closed. She wasn’t entirely sure she approved, but she was curious, and not uncomfortable.
“What exactly are you doing back there, biker boy?”
His fingers brushed down her back so lightly she barely felt them. He did it a second time, and goose bumps formed in the wake of his caress. “You know, you are a lot smaller than you seem,” he said quietly. “I mean, you always seem like you are taking up so much space.”
She turned her head just enough that she could see the outline of his body in the near darkness of her room. “Gee, thanks. You do get second dates from time to time, right?”
He chuckled, but it wasn’t an entirely happy sound. Finn seemed a little distant, and a little distracted. She wondered where his mind was. His weight shifted and his next words were spoken against her recently teased skin. “I need to do this.”
“I need you to be a little more specific about what it is you want.”
“I need to…” He waved his hand around at the corner of her vision. “You know, please you.”
That was the third time he had said something about making sure she was enjoying herself here. She had a thought, crazy enough to be true. “Are you afraid you won’t?”
He didn’t answer her at first, which was answer enough. “I need to make you feel good.”
She understood, and she didn’t. He was clearly afraid she wasn’t going to enjoy this moment. Was it the fact that she had pushed him away for so long? Had his pride taken that much of a hit, or was there more to it than that? She was leaning pretty heavily toward the latter, though she had almost nothing to back it up with.
“Finn, you know I want to be here, right?”
He pressed his forehead against her shoulder. “Say it again.”
She wiggled herself until she could roll over just enough to face him. “Finn,” she said, taking his face between her hands and planting a single kiss on the mouth made fuller by their passionate kisses. “I want to be here. I want this, and I want you. I am not the kind of woman who stays where she isn’t wanted.”
It was as if some great tension had left him. He moved over her, mounting her backside once again, pinning her between him and the mattress. All the talking and thinking serious thoughts had caused him to grow soft, but she could feel the length of him waken as she moved up to match his movements.
His lips were gentler than they had been before now, gliding across the soft skin of her back. Finn kissed and touched until she was shivering all over again. Her hands gripped the bed sheets as he alternated between being gentle and being rough until her mind was spinning.
His mouth went lower, teasing along the firm softness of her curves until his tongue could play along the swell of her backside. Giddy waves of pleasure rippled outward from where he touched. Never had her body felt so awake.
“That’s all well and good, but it isn’t going to finish the job,” she teased.
He didn’t answer out loud. Instead, Cora felt the firm pressure of his hand part her thighs. One callused finger swept along her cleft, reminding her of how deliciously wet she was. She suddenly understood the power of this particular position. With her body pinned between him and the bed, she couldn’t see him. She couldn’t even watch. All she could do was feel as he explored her folds with a single digit.
He, however, could watch her. She opened her legs as far as was comfortable and lifted her back end toward him.
“You are so goddamned beautiful, Cora,” he said as his finger continued its languid caress. “Do you know that?”
She did, but it was lovely to hear it. He said it with such honest reverence that she went pliant as his finger slid home, that first delicious penetration bringing a sound from her throat. Her body went from lax to hyperaware. She felt the sheets bunching beneath her clenching palms, the sweep of his long hair against her skin as he leaned over her body.
As he began to pump that one finger in and out of her opening, she felt it all…and then her awareness narrowed down to the single point where his fingertip brushed the dampness of her. She started to move, keeping her mind on just that point. She felt, or maybe saw, the light of the apex of pleasure forming. Her body grew hot, and for a moment she felt like she was chasing the ecstasy, a teasing hope.
“Oh God,” she whispered into the mattress. “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare.”
He didn’t. His hand moved faster as he found that exact place she liked most. He pushed his fingertip against it over and over again. “So beautiful,” he groaned. “You are so damned beautiful.”
“Finn…” She purred his name like a prayer. “Oh yes, yes!” Ecstasy, hot and voracious, cracked through her like a whip or a lightning strike. Maybe both. It didn’t matter—nothing mattered. It was a primitive sensation that drew sounds she didn’t know she could make from her throat. She buried her head against the pillow and cried out for him. She was flying, she was almost sure of it. “Oh! God, yes!”
When she came back down from the high, her body didn’t feel entirely like her own. Languidly she rolled over onto her back and reached out for him. He lay against her, his hand settling on her hip.
“That was good,” she whispered, not sure if she was talking to him, herself, or the sensual memory that she would treasure forever. She said a small prayer of thankfulness for the air-conditioning since a thin layer of sweat had formed along her front from being pushed against the bed.
He rolled over her suddenly, and she blinked. “Your turn now?” she asked teasingly.
“I am not done yet.” His soft mouth formed a mischievous smile and ventured down, and down and down, his hands slithering along the sides of her body like he was going to memorize her very shape. Anticipation built inside of her as he pushed himself between her slick legs and gave her an impish look. “I’ve thought about doing this,” he admitted.
“Have you really?” She wasn’t entirely sure she believed him, especially with that devilish air to him.
“You are all prim and confident and sure of yourself. Don’t get me wrong,” he said, laying a series of kisses that started at her knee and worked their way up. “I love it when you glare at me.”
She narrowed her eyes at him until he laughed, and she could feel the brush of his breath against her moistness.
“Yeah, just like that.” He gave her a quick, light lick, and her toes curled in a shock of pleasure. She was so soon off her first high that everything felt sharper, more brilliant. She started to shift back, and he placed a single hand on her belly. “I wanna see you lose control, Cora.”
Cora wasn’t sure she wanted to lose control. Going wild meant making mistakes, and mistakes meant a lot of time cleaning up your own life. She knew the look showed on her face because he pillowed his cheek against her thigh, keeping those big blue eyes on her. His hair was a blanket down her leg.
“What is it?”
“I like being in control,” she said flatly.
“Even…now?” He motioned between them.
“Especially now.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She clapped her lips shut and shook her head. Lust was quickly fading, and she started to pull away from him. He didn’t stop her, but he didn’t help her move either.
“Cora, I don’t know what happened, and you don’t need to tell me. But I want you to know I won’t let anything bad happen with you.”
“How can you say that if you don’t know?” She pulled her legs up to her body. She wanted to pull the long-forgotten robe around her body, and a blanket or two. She felt more exposed now than she had when he’d been working his hands over her. It was not a sexy feeling.
He slid up next to her but didn’t touch. He seemed to understand that she needed space. It made her think a little better of him.
“I’ve got sisters, you know. I can tell what the difference is between the ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ that means you should ask her anyway, and the ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ that means she actually truly doesn’t want you to pry.”
It was weird that she’d never thought of him as having a family, or sisters. What did that say about her that she hadn’t been thinking about him as coming from something? That made her a pretty crappy human being. Her shoulders hunched. “You make a very astute observation.”
He reached out slowly, and when she didn’t move back he laid a strong hand on her shoulder. She was transfixed by how warm he was, the striking difference in the hues of their skin. Silence blossomed between them, but it wasn’t the hard kind of silence that came with awkwardness. It was a comfort.
“Well,” he said after a moment. “We’ve got three choices.”
“Oh?” She raised her brow.
He ticked them off on the fingers of the hand that wasn’t currently touching her. “One, we get dressed and heat up the leftovers from dinner and watch horror flicks until the sun comes up.”
“That’s not a terrible idea,” she said.
“It’s not my favorite one, but it’s definitely on the table if that’s what you need.”
His words lifted a weight off her shoulders that she hadn’t known she was holding. Casual sex, for all that they called it casual, was filled with a hundred thousand expectations that could make it more difficult than it was sometimes worth. The fact that he was lifting those expectations made her shift until she could look at him more fully. “What’s number two and three?”
“Two is I can keep doing what I was about to do. Or, number three, I can let you take the reins.”
She thought it over, and he let her. God, she had expected a big bad criminal enforcer to just be the kind of hard-ass guy who grabbed a woman, threw her down, and did whatever it was he wanted to. He was, just like earlier, giving her the choice.
“I vote for option three.”
He ran his tongue over his lips. “Well, if you insist.”
She did. In a move fast enough to draw the breath from both of them, she pushed him against the bed and mounted him. His hands went first to her hips, but she plucked them off and pushed them up above his head. “Stay.”
He gave a teasing “woof” in response.
It was her turn to take her time. She wasn’t planning on a second night with him, and so she wanted to remember every little part of him for some lonely evening down the road. Her hands started with his hair, that long fall of inky black. She ran her fingers through it until it made a massive fan over the rich pillows. Then she leaned over him and placed a nearly chaste kiss on his brow.
“I had a dream about you,” she admitted, as she ran the fullness of her lips across his skin, softly and gently.
“Was it a good dream?”
“Would have been better if my alarm hadn’t gone off.”
He laughed, and the moment he did she pressed her mouth over his. She swallowed the sound of his happiness down, drank it like she could take it into herself and chase all her bad thoughts away. His tongue played over hers, dashing in and out of her mouth with quick practiced flicks that had the heat rising between them again.
Her hands moved over his arms. She could feel the raised skin of the outline of his tattoos, the ever so slight variation between the inked flesh and the pure. Her mouth moved from his lips to the wrist of one arm, and she used her tongue to trace the lines over the tender inner flesh until he was squirming.
“Tease,” he grumbled amiably.
“Yes,” she said without apology.
He is so wonderfully built, she thought as she let herself explore his arms, shoulders, and chest. The wide set to his shoulders, the fit muscles that bunched and moved with his every motion, all of it tapering down to a perfect trim waist. She pressed her body to his and remembered the fact that he was still wearing jeans. Well, that just wouldn’t do. If she were going to be naked, he was going to have to join her. She gave him one more kiss to drown in and then slipped down. Her mouth made a quick line between his lips and that soft patch of skin between his belly button and his jeans. She made a figure eight with the tip of her tongue.
His lips moved beneath her, a silent pleading that made her smile. Slowly, she undid the brass button and then the teeth of the zipper to reveal the simple boxers beneath. The outline of his rigidness was perfectly clear, even in the near dark of her bedroom. She ran her cheek over the fabric, nuzzling him with a gentleness that surprised them both. With a tug, his jeans were on the floor, and a moment later the boxers joined them.
She took a moment to just look at him. The top of him was built like a picture, and the bottom matched. The long lines of his legs were strong, crafted by hours of walking around a shop or maybe even running from the law, she didn’t know. At the moment, she didn’t even care. His body, head excluded, was remarkably light in body hair. It made it easy to slide her hands over his legs and cup the perfect length of him.
He was so warm in her hands, long and perfectly straight. The broad tip of him encased in a natural slip of skin. She wrapped one hand around the tip and stroked slowly down, exposing the sensitive tip to the air. He groaned for her, and she reveled in the sound.
“You don’t have to be so gentle,” he told her.
She chuckled, and the sound was almost pitying. “I am well aware of that, biker boy. I let you have control. Now it’s my turn.”
“Is this you telling me to shut up again?”
“You continue to be perceptive.”
She moved her fist all the way down to the root of him and then back up. It was slow, but her fingers were tight. She took up a steady languid pace. It was enough to keep him swollen, but not near enough to build the pleasure that would bring an end to the evening. She watched his face as he relinquished himself to the moment. His eyes closed, and his mouth hung open. He was almost pliant.
When she was sure he was as relaxed as a man could be in his state, she wrapped her mouth over him. His eyes flew open, and he made a strangled sound of satisfied shock. Her mouth wrapped tight, and she started to bob her head up and down. He moved beneath her, but she used one hand against his belly to tell him to hold still.
It didn’t take long. Not after the delicate foreplay.
“Wait,” he gasped, “I—”
She didn’t wait; she moved faster, suckling harder. Her free hand slid from his belly to the swollen satin of the pouch between his thighs, and she started to tease. Her gaze flicked up to watch his face as he tried to stave off the peak.
“Cora!” he groaned.
She moved back just in time to watch him spill. Her eyes were riveted on the taut lines of his body as his hips jerked in primal abandon. The twitch of his cock as he expended his seed made her smirk. She stroked him through it and then the after spasms until he curled over on one side and told her it was too much.
A moment later he had a towel in his hand and a smile on his lips. “Was that payback?”
“Yes,” she said after a moment of thought.
He rolled his forehead against the pillow and sighed graciously. “Totally worth it.”
“Leftovers?” she asked.
He looked back at her over his shoulder. “What? You’re done?”
She looked at the shaft between his legs, long since grown soft. “You aren’t?”
He rolled over toward her and placed a kiss on her stomach. “What time is it?”
She glanced over at her bedside clock and the vibrant red numbers there. “Eleven thirty-eight.”
“I’ve got a few more hours left in me,” he rumbled as he dipped his mouth lower and lower.
She laughed, not quite believing him. Men liked to promise lots in the way of prowess. Few delivered, and even that was rare. She petted the top of his head, pulling a few locks of damp dark hair out of his face. “Promises, promises.”
The look he gave her was a challenge, and it drew a heat she hadn’t expected from her body. She felt the hungry tightening of her groin and lifted her hands up as if in welcome. “All right, biker boy. Show me what you’ve got.”
He did. There was no slow hungry teasing this time. He gripped her pale thighs and pressed her knees to the mattress, exposing her sodden cleft. His mouth opened wide and wrapped over her, drawing as much of her pleasure between his lips as possible. And then he started to lick. It was fast and hungry and wild, and her back arched off the bed. He dug his hands into her thighs and held her in place even as the pleasure welled up inside of her. She felt the pleasant bite of his nails in her skin.
His eyes rolled up to watch her, the hot light of challenge making them glitter. His lips clung to her in such a way that she could not watch his tongue, but God she could feel it. She gripped the pillow behind her head and wrapped one leg around his back until her foot was flat against the muscles there. She had hoped it would stave off the rush. It didn’t.
“Oh God,” was the only thing she could say, the only words she remembered.
He pulled his mouth away just long enough to say, “Not yet, Cora. Not yet.”
He was utterly relentless. Every time her high surged toward the surface, he pulled back. He trapped her in that delicious point between pleasure and desperation. Her skin felt too tight, too hot around her body. Her mouth was dry, but her thighs were wet. She no longer knew if she was struggling to hold him back or pull him closer.
“Finn, please!” she begged.
He lifted his mouth from her for an untold time, but this time he pressed his palm against her. Two fingers slid into her, crooking against the tender parts within until she was writhing. “Do you need it, Cora?”
“Yes! Damn you, yes!”
“Then do it.”
He wrapped his lips once more around her cleft, but his fingers did not stop their diligent dance. The wild feeling of being caught between the two sensations had her going from “not enough” to “there!” in a matter of moments. She fisted her fingers in his hair and rode the wild sensation of her second high with pure and utter abandon.
Her body felt too heavy and made of warm rubber. Indelicately, she flopped back against the mattress with enough force to pull the fitted sheet off the bed. She couldn’t quite bring herself to care. When she could open her eyes, which she was certain had been plastered shut by ecstasy, he was kneeling between her legs, looking utterly satisfied.
“What?” she asked.
“You look absolutely gorgeous.”
She laughed and waved a heavy hand in his general direction. “I’m pretty sure I look like a wet towel. By God, Finn, where did you learn to do that?”
He lifted a brow at her, and she sighed. He had admitted to loving women. Even if she were a jealous person by nature, she certainly couldn’t be bothered with that right now since she was reaping the benefits of his carnal knowledge.
He leaned over her and gave her another kiss. When he lowered his body against hers, she felt the heavy press of his tip against her opening, already swollen and ready.
“Oh really?” she chuckled, seizing his lip between her teeth for just a second.
“Did you want to stop?” he asked.
She shook her head. Maybe it was the endorphins of two powerful orgasms still pumping through her veins, or maybe it was the fact that he looked like some tattooed tribal god perched over her, but Cora was almost sure she could keep this up all night. The thought thrilled her. Hell, she thought to herself, he thrills me.
“Oh, no.” She wrapped one arm around his neck and pulled him closer to her. “You promised to drive me wild.”
“Good.”
He used his knee to part her legs a little bit more. When he settled between her thighs, she became completely aware of the heat of his shaft, perched against her. He didn’t move, not at first. For a long moment, they just lay there tucked against one another, and then he moved.
He slid into her, inch by delicious inch. She felt her body part and accept him. Felt the languid thrust of his hips to push the very last bit of him into her until their bodies were locked in the most intimate of kisses. She wrapped herself around him and ran her tongue over the curve of his ear.
“Don’t you dare hold back now,” Cora snipped, setting her teeth to his ear. “Not after all those big bold promises you made.”
He chuckled, but he didn’t move. He stayed rooted inside of her so the tip of him touched the very back of her. “Woman, you are so damn demanding. You know that?”
“I do.”
He laughed and then gave a single teasing thrust. Both of them stopped talking. Feeling him inside of her had been a pleasurable ache. Feeling him move was bliss. He seemed to fit exactly how she needed him to, pushing against all those pleasurable places that almost never got attention.
“Again,” she purred.
Once he began he couldn’t stop. A steady rhythm built between them; not quite slow, not quite rough but somehow it managed to be both. He ran one hand down her body until it wrapped around her knee, tugging it up until he opened her more. The subtle shift of their bodies had him pushing just a little deeper.
“More,” he growled.
“Is there more?” she teased back.
He made an animalistic sound and rolled her to her knees. His hands swept down her back and then to her hips, pushing her forward even as he pushed inside of her. She grabbed the back of the bed to hold herself still.
“Oh Finn, yes. More, give me more.”
“Say it again.”
She did, thrusting her hips back to add emphasis to the phrase. She didn’t want him to take his time anymore. She didn’t want gentle or teasing. She wanted him, all of him, and she wanted it now.
He maneuvered his body again until he had mounted her, like he couldn’t get enough of her beneath him. He put one hand on her shoulder and the other on her hip, and he started to pound into her body. His hips steadily became a blur, pushing into her depths, hard and reckless. She felt the bed creak beneath her hands where they gripped.
“Harder,” she demanded. “Finn, harder.”
He jerked her back from the bed, and she caught her arms against the pillow, pushing it beneath her body until her hips were cradled by the softness. He gripped one wrist, holding her right there. The shift had her body tightening around him, and he felt larger inside of her. They groaned in tandem.
“There,” she gasped. “Right there.”
His body became a relentless engine of pleasure as he hammered into her. “Cora,” he gasped. His thrusts took on that imperfect pulse of a man fast approaching his own peak.
“Not yet,” she hissed. “Not yet!”
He shoved deep into her, as if he could disappear inside of her. She thrust herself back against him, grinding her body against the ball of need that was building inside of her. He twitched, spasmed, and then came. Once, twice, three times he thrust, and then he filled her. The white-hot sensation of him pouring into her body drove her over the edge, and she joined him in mindless, blinding release.
They stayed there for a moment more, rooted together and breathing hard. When he began to pull back, his hand carefully guiding himself out of her, she almost mourned the loss. When he was free of her, he tumbled to his side, making the bed creak again.
“Good God, woman.”
“Oh, is that all, biker boy?”
He nipped hard enough at her shoulder that she poked at him. “I have never met a woman more ungrateful than you.”
“I’m plenty grateful, but you promised me hours and it’s…just after twelve fifteen.” She had just enough energy to tap the bedside clock beside her.
He took a deep breath and rolled over, pushing his limp shaft against her thigh. She laughed and squirmed away.
“I’ll give you all night…in about twenty minutes.”
“Promises, promises.”