Mere was kissing me before my brain could catch up to my loins and remind me this was a bad idea.
This was work. She was trouble. We weren’t compatible. Her attitude drove me nuts. And Stavros was going to get me fired.
I reached up to bury my fingers in her curls, intending to yank her away from me even though I’d invited her to my mouth, but instead I cupped the back of her head and slicked our tongues together. She tasted like cigarettes, which should have had me recoiling but didn’t. I was almost glad there wasn’t any sugar or rosé on that naughty tongue of hers. Just Marlboros and trouble.
I sucked on it to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, as if I could read her intentions by keeping her in my mouth, and was rewarded by a sound that was half growl, half helpless moan. Like she didn’t know if she wanted to be the aggressor here or the one, once again, spreading herself open.
Mere backed up, drawing me with her, the perfect give-and-take. She wanted to be spread open all right, but it was on her terms this time—her reeling me in instead of staring at me with smoky eyes and waiting for me to make the first move, like she had last time. When her ass hit the ancient sink, she hoisted herself up and drew me between her thighs, all without breaking the kiss.
The many reasons why this needed to end were repeating in my brain, but I ignored each one. My hand found its way to her plunging neckline, and my fingers moved over the sheer fabric that barely hid three-quarters of her small round breasts. I traced my fingertips downward and rolled them along her nipple. Her thighs tightened around me, and she pulled away with a low gasp.
I kissed down her chin, latching on to the side of her neck as I gently caressed her breast. Considering the shiver that tore through her, you’d think I was rubbing her clit. Maybe I should.
Maybe I would.
“Tonya . . .”
She smelled so fucking good. Not like perfume, but something subtler. Bodywash? Moisturizer? I licked down the column of her neck to investigate further, and finally let my fingers slide beneath her dress. Her nipple was pebbled, and I wanted it in my mouth.
Mere’s fingers dug into my shoulders. “We should stop.”
Three little words, the same three words that were supposed to have been my own mantra, sent everything screeching to a halt. Awareness seeped into me, and all of a sudden, the reality of how warm and wet I was irritated me. She’d ruined me with barely any effort at all—guiding me out of my better judgment with only a few uncertain looks and a huskily spoken offer.
I stepped back, wiping her lipstick from my mouth as she slid to the floor with a clack of her heels. She was blushing so prettily that I couldn’t stop watching as she tugged down her dress, tucked her breast away, and messed with the long loose ringlets of her hair.
She was trying to become picture-perfect yet again. For some reason, that bothered me too. Why did people need personas and masks? I had no idea what the real Meredith was like, or which parts of her were more dominant once she wasn’t putting on an act. A flash of irritation went through me at the thought, and I backed away.
“I’m not playing games with you,” Mere said, meeting my gaze at long last. “I know it probably seems like I was trying to prove a point. To tell myself that you wanted me, or I could get you to do something even after you spent a year ignoring me.”
That was exactly what I’d thought. It was why anger had replaced lust as soon as I’d blinked the stars out of my eyes—I couldn’t tell what she wanted or which version of her wanted it. I didn’t say that, though. I just gave her my dead expression, the one that drove Stephanie and Chris nuts, and waited for her to explain.
Mere looked in the mirror, examining her makeup. The red had smudged on her mouth and onto the pale skin around it. I watched her try to fix it, licking her finger and wiping before using one long nail to scrape at it, and I didn’t miss the way her slim hands were trembling or how she glanced at me from the corner of her eye.
“But there’s something about you that gets under my skin, and if we let that go any farther . . . I’d have lost sight of why I’m in this shitty fucking factory and begged you to eat me out regardless of which guests could hear.” She gave up on her lipstick since the red still stained her skin, and turned to me. “And then I’d get fired.”
My eyebrows shot up, and I forgot to be irritated at the direction this had all gone in. Even now, as she fiddled with the hem of her dress and clearly tried to figure out a way to position her body as we faced off, I could feel my resistance to her crumbling. Maybe she’d start acting like a seventeen-year-old again, and I’d remember what a dumb-ass plan it was to fuck a spoiled heiress.
“Fired? Your brother owns the fucking company, Meredith.”
“Right, he owns a third of it, and he made it clear that if I can’t be professional, I won’t remain as the brand ambassador.” She huffed out a little breath, fondness and irritation all balled into one scrunch of her nose. “I doubt the brand is . . . ‘CEO’s sister gets tongue-fucked in the toilet during QFindr Plus pop-up event.’ I mean, I’m just guessing.”
A laugh left my mouth before I was ready to contain it. Meredith’s eyes got huge, which made me laugh more. How was it possible to be this annoyed and amused at the same time? She had to be into some low-key brujería shit.
“You look so beautiful when you laugh.”
I abruptly stopped laughing. “Thanks for ruining it.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re so prickly. How do you manage to date anyone?”
“I don’t.” Way to lead her into another line of annoying questions, T-Bone. Yeah, it was time to get the fuck out of this bathroom and far away from her. I was not myself when we were in close proximity. “I’m going back to work.”
Turning on my heel, I strode out of the bathroom and into the sweltering hallway. There were a couple of people heading toward the bathroom from the event room, so I gave Meredith mental props for having more willpower than me. There was no way word wouldn’t have gotten around had someone walked in on me with my face buried between her thighs.
But she would have tasted so fucking sweet.
Meredith’s knees had drawn in and pressed together, light tremors wracking her body as she came down from her orgasm. I watched her try to piece herself back together, taking deep breaths and blinking at me. Her legs went slack, and I slid my drenched fingers out of her. She hissed out a breath when I traced her swollen folds with my fingertips one last time before pulling away.
“Fuck.” Her voice was even lower and throatier post-sex. “I don’t think I’ve come that hard in ages.”
The ache between my legs intensified, and fire licked upward from there. A whole mural of filthy images passed before my mind as she sat there leaning back on her hands, damp and gorgeous and still possessing a hungry look in her eye. Not an ounce of shame that the entire production crew and likely our friends had heard her moans, the way she’d said my name like a fucking prayer. The way she’d begged me to fuck her while rubbing frantically at her own clit.
A spasm went through my fingers. My heart sped up.
Then, a knowing smirk, a cocky one, spread across her lovely face, and she arched a brow. “I can’t wait to tell Ashton that I fucked the hot Marine.”
The words were ice-cold water all over me. She reached out to grab my arm, but I coolly took a step back.
“I can make you come just as hard,” Mere said. “If you get those pants down.”
“Nah. I’m good.”
Mere cocked her head, confused, and I turned around right after sucking her wetness off my fingers. If I were on death row, I’d request to taste her for my last meal, but I wasn’t. And I was nobody’s fucking conquest.
I walked out without a backward glance.
Meredith’s heels clicked against the floor behind me as we returned to the event room, but I didn’t look over my shoulder. I was too busy reminding myself of why I’d backed off the first time. Stephanie and Chris had vouched for her more times than I could count, Stephanie ever since they’d become partners in crime, and Chris since hooking up with her half brother and his husband—Aiden and Jace. Although, hooking up didn’t seem to be the right description anymore.
He’d just told us that he’d be shacking up with them as soon as the heat wave broke, and that we could save our wise-guy comments for moving day when he’d put us to work helping out. Figured he’d get into a throuple with some rich guys and still want to do all the manual labor. Couldn’t even splurge when his pair of husbands were offering.
“Can we talk after this is over?” Mere murmured as we stepped through the door. “Please.”
“If we have time.”
She didn’t look convinced, but she returned to her side of the room and I went back to mine. Stavros had moved, but he was easily visible in his black suit amid the guests who were all dressed for summer in a hot-ass factory. There were enough pretty girls in short, lightweight dresses to fill about eight thousand fantasies, but this was work, so I didn’t see them as anything but potential issues.
“You handle it?”
“Yeah,” I said, coming to a stop next to Stavros. “You’re fine.”
“Good.” A pause. “Your zipper’s down.”
My hand shot down before I remembered I’d never unzipped. Stavros laughed silently, and I glared.
“Funny. I didn’t touch her.”
“Then why are you wearing her lipstick?”
Christ, this guy wouldn’t give me a break.
“Man, you got your promised A-plus eval, right? Get off my back.”
We glared at each other for a moment before he snorted and returned to his bored observation of the crowd. “I appreciate the effort, kid. I need this job, as sad as it is.”
I didn’t know what was sadder. The awareness that I might be stuck at Redline with him for the next however long to commiserate about being stuck there, or the fact that I didn’t really have anything else I’d rather do. I settled for finding Meredith in the crowd, and watching her drape those long lovely arms around someone else’s neck. I was sure it was a friend, but I still wanted that person to die.
“Do you have a girlfriend, Maldonado?”
“Do you have a boyfriend, Mr. Never Shuts the Fuck Up?”
“I’m married.”
“Well, good for you. I hope you have an easy future divorce.”
Another of his what an asshole kid snorts. Then, “If you have no one waiting at home, a pretty blonde with a boatload of cash seems like a solid plan.”
This time when I glared at him, I meant it. And I kept glaring until he got the hint and held up his hands in surrender. No personal talk. No small talk. Just two queers who were stuck together because Redline hadn’t wanted to send any of their hetero guards to the queer event.
Yeah . . . both Stavros and I were gonna need to get the hell out of there.
The rest of the event dragged out, but I made the rounds, checked the exits, and learned the function of QFindr Plus. It was an actual dating app instead of an app that aggregated the results from dozens of other dating websites. The original QFindr app would pull results from QPlus as well.
I had to admit that Caleb, Oli, and Aiden were probably making bank. As cranky as I was, the event was cool in a yuppie sort of way, and Meredith was a great hostess. She smiled so much that her face likely ached by the end of the night, and I noticed that her movements slowed after a while. Like a toy winding down. It probably took a lot out of her to maintain her sassy attitudinal flavor of a personality for long periods of time, but the guests loved it. And the press loved her too. I noticed a specific journalist, a lady with a half-shaved head and tattoo sleeves that rivaled my own, hovering near Mere more than seemed necessary.
It irritated me. And I was irritated that it irritated me, but it burned that I could easily picture them together. Mere liked her women forceful, take charge, and Tatyana Rush of the Village Voice, or where the fuck ever, seemed like she’d be up for the job.
Yeah, I wanted her to die too.
When everyone cleared out and it was time for the cleaning staff to file in, I quit staring her down and turned to Stavros to figure out when we were released from duty. We’d check the perimeter, sweep for anyone remaining in the building, and then dip once the clock struck twelve.
Sounded good. My head ached from a near constant subconscious clench of my teeth, and I needed to get laid. Staring at Meredith’s legs all night had me in desperate need for a three-hour sexual encounter, and it couldn’t be with her. I wouldn’t be her alpha Marine, and she wouldn’t be my rich army candy. Whenever people were immediately assigned stupid-ass titles based on assumptions, it usually meant my time would be better spent somewhere with less trouble.
Meredith left while we were clearing the building, which should have been a relief but wasn’t. The thing in the back of my brain, that craggy paranoid voice, didn’t like that she’d left alone after her brother had demanded the event be saddled with protection all night.
“I’m gonna take off,” I told Stavros. “We have ten minutes, but I need to catch my ride.”
“You’re good, kid.”
Stavros winked, like he knew who I was chasing after.
We said our goodbyes, amicable despite our bickering, and I speed walked to the freight elevator. My heart was thrumming in my chest, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I reminded myself over and over again to stop being a stereotype—to stop living in the headspace where I spent every waking moment expecting something to go wrong. But I’d carried that worry since I was a kid, since my mother’s smacks and my father’s closed fists, and it had heightened after multiple tours overseas. Usually, when I felt like something would go wrong . . . it did.
Which was why I was prepared for it when the elevators opened and I saw one of the motherfuckers with an undercut pinning Meredith against the wall while the other one pawed through her purse.
Usually, an icy calm settled over me once my awful gut feelings panned out. Okay, I’d tell myself, she’s going to hit you, so brace for it. Or, He’s going to challenge you, so put your fucking fists up. And lastly, We’re surrounded. Handle it. But seeing that big meaty hand crushing Meredith against the wall? It sent me into a blind rage.
I blinked once and felt myself moving forward.
The next time I blinked, Fuckboy A was unconscious at my feet with a crushed-in nose, and I looked up to find Meredith clocking the hell out of the guy who’d promptly lost his shit at the sight of me unleashing holy hell onto his pal.
He wasn’t ready for my right hook catching him in his jaw, so he spun oddly, slammed into the wall, and then took off at a dead sprint down the street. I immediately launched myself after him, but Meredith wrapped her long arms around me and yanked me back against her dress.
“No,” she panted. “He might have a weapon.”
I didn’t remind her that I was armed. She was shaking like a leaf against me, her teeth chattering, and her voice sounding all wrong. Thick with tears. With fear. With Fuckboy B having vanished, and his buddy bleeding and unconscious on the floor, I turned to Meredith and cupped her face in my hands.
She was chalk white, eyes wide and damp, and her lips were pressed into a thin red line.
“You okay, mama?”
“Yes.” Her voice cracked. She shook her head. “Can you hug me, please?”
Goddamn, but that request almost broke me. It was a little too familiar. A little too much like me back before the scar tissue had sealed me into something hard and impenetrable.
I pulled her against me with one hand—letting her press her face against my neck and cling like I was the only thing that could anchor her to the world—and ripped out my phone to call the police with the other.