Chapter Eleven
Brynn
Foster had been much more serious this time, taking my report with much stomping and serious looks. The thief, whoever he was, didn't seem to have a reason for breaking in at all. Nothing was missing. Nothing was even out of place. It was all very strange, and Gabe agreed. He'd warned me to call him at any time I felt unsafe, reminding me that we were friends and he was worried for me out here. A woman all alone.
But instead of making me feel safe to know he was worried for me, it just made me feel more victimized. When he opened the door to his car, I breathed a sigh of relief.
As Gabe pulled away in his cruiser, I suddenly became aware of how quickly the night had cooled off. I clutched my arms across my chest and shivered, suddenly freezing. Then my teeth started to chatter.
"Are you okay?" Everett asked, moving to my side. His voice soft and low, and strangely soothing.
I looked up at him and tried to work my lips into the shape of a smile. "Yes, I'm fine," I said, my voice false in my ears.
I just needed him to stop looking at me for a second, let me pull myself back together again. Everything was fine, the police report had been made, there was no damage other than the window and I was okay, so why couldn’t I stop shaking?
"Brynn," Rett said, his voice cutting through the storm of thoughts that raged inside my head. "Would you like me to stay?"
I turned and looked at him again. I wanted to tell him no thanks, I was fine. It was no big deal, no need for all these dramatics.
I opened my mouth tell him all that, but the word that came out instead was, "Yes."
He nodded, then wrapped his arm around my waist, skillfully guiding me up the stairs into my house. He led me so assuredly, that I could have just closed my eyes and leaned on him, and let him do the work leading us both, and in fact I did just that. I rested my head on his shoulder, suddenly and inexplicably tired.
Rett entered my house like he'd been there a zillion times before, turning in the narrow front hallway and pushing me gently up the stairs. I wasn't going to think about the fact that we were heading into my bedroom. I wasn't going to think about anything at all. With him leading me, I didn't have to do anything at all.
I was immensely grateful that for once I could just let someone else do the work.
He guided me down the short hallway and then pressed open the door to my bedroom, letting me step in first, a consummate gentleman. Mr. Stevens stood up from his nest of covers on my bed and stretched, then made a hopeful beeline down the stairs towards his food bowl.
Rett shut the door behind him.
"Do you want me to stay?" he repeated again, once we were both inside.
Once again, I tried to summon the will to say that yes, I was fine, he should go.
But the second he took his hands off me, that surge of fear was back again. I closed my eyes and then opened them. "Stay," I said in a ragged exhale
"Brynn," he said, and God, had he always said my name with that same low growl? "I'm asking you. What do you want?"
I licked my lips and closed my eyes, remembering the assured way he'd touched me in the car, remembering that moment in the closet. What did I want? Was he going to make me say it?
I opened my eyes. "Put your hands on me, again," I said. And, hating how bossy I sounded, I inhaled sharply. "Please," I asked softly.
He stepped forward. Were his eyes always that dark? They were usually a soft hazel green, the color of moss and lichens and cool, shady pines. Now they were almost black.
When his hand slid around my waist and he pulled me closer to him, I felt that same sense of calm, of letting go. His fingers on my skin were somehow both a sedative and a stimulant all at once.
"My hands are on you," he said, and his lips were so close. "But you want more, don't you?"
I nodded, biting my lip.
"No," he said, barely audible, his breath against my ear. "I don't think you want. I think you need."
I nodded again. "I need you to hold me. I need you to kiss me," I said, unsure of exactly whose voice it was that was saying these things so directly. "Make me stop thinking," I begged, and this time I was sure the voice was mine, because I couldn't keep the note of begging out of it.
His hands were sliding up my thighs. "Kiss me, then," he ordered me.
I licked my lips and went up onto my tiptoes, straining for his lips. As we kissed, he worked his thigh between my legs, just as it had been on the dance floor. But this time I ground myself into him, not even hearing about being such a wanton slut. I moaned into his mouth. "Do you find me useful to have around?" he asked, throwing my words at me, his lips curling into a smile against mine.
"Well," I sighed, wrapping my arms around his neck. "When you're good at something..."
There was the curve of a smug smile at the corner of his mouth. "Just good?"
I'd already lost whatever dignity I possessed, so I figured why lie? "The best," I moaned.
He made an appreciative little humming noise against my forehead. "We fucked in a cramped closet," he murmured, brushing his lips across my forehead and down to my ear. "You were barely able to move," he whispered. "You liked that?"
What could I say about how that had made me feel? To be pressed between his body and the wall? To be held, cradled, and completely under his control? How could I explain the strange way it calmed me, soothed me, the way it made me feel completed? Like the last missing pieces of my own personal puzzle sliding into place. "I did," I groaned, arching against him. He obliged me by pressing his hands into the small of my back, pushing me down against his thigh. "I did like that."
This time his noise of appreciation was more like a growl, a rough, dangerous noise that rolled through me right down to my toes. There was this caged up, dangerous animal lurking inside of Rett, I could see it now. Until now he'd only let me see that buttoned-up exterior, the good Boy Scout. But he wasn't all he seemed.
And I was desperate to know more.
He snaked his hand around my waist then walked us both backwards. I hit the wall with a gasp, and then gasped again when he caught my wrists and pinned them over my head. Then he stepped back.
The way his eyes flicked upward to take in the sight of him overpowering me told me everything I needed to know about how much he liked it. And the way my body melted told me everything I needed to know about how much I liked it too.
"How far do you want me to go?" he asked, leaning down and catching my lower lip in his teeth.
I shivered. What I wanted him to do, and what I wanted to ask for were two different things. The way he had me trembling just from the feel of his body pressed up against mine — pinning me to the wall, pressing me with his weight — frightened me.
"I don't know," I said, and that was a bald-faced lie, but I didn't want him to know how badly I wanted this.
"If I touch you, right here," he asked, sliding his fingers along my thigh, just high enough to make me arch upward against where he cupped me, "would you say no?"
"No!" I gasped, going up on my tip toes, urging him on.
He made a sound in the back of his throat. The light was on this time, I could see him, and I could see how his eyes were almost black when he looked at me. "What if I touch you here?" he said, sliding the tip of his finger along my seam just over the fabric of my panties. "Would you say no?"
I was nearly out of my mind, so I didn't even know what to say. "Yes!" I gasped. "I mean, no!"
"You want more?" he asked.
I could feel his body straining, vibrating delicately with the force of holding something back. It was that something that I wanted, even though I didn't have a name for it. I wanted whatever it was he was trying so desperately to keep tamped down
"I want more," I told him and blushed immediately.
But he wasn't looking at my face. He was looking down, watching his own finger as it slid lightly over my clit. Lightly, so lightly, too lightly. I moaned, and slid downward, or tried to, but his hand still had me pinned. I was at his mercy, and what's more, I liked it.
"I'll give you more," Rett rasped, bending down to nip at my neck. His lips traced a line up to my ear lobe where he took the soft flesh between his teeth and nipped down just enough to make me gasp before moving his fingers faster, making me gasp for a whole different reason. "I'll give you exactly as much as you want. You just have to tell me you want it."
"I want it," I begged. I craved that edge of danger he was promising me.
And he knew it too, by the way he hissed a sharp indrawn breath. His finger, suddenly rough, ripped the fabric of my panties aside and I bit my lip as it slid inside of me.
"So wet," he groaned, bending his lips to my neck again.
I squirmed against it, still pinned by his hand, wanting to move, to arch, to grind, but he held me fast, drawing it out, his thumb finding the small button of my clit and moving in slow circles in time with his thrusting finger. "I love how wet you get for me. I love how much you need this."
Did I need it? I wasn't sure what I needed. Except more.
With a yelp, I rocked forward, but he lodged his thigh between my legs, his finger still moving. I was held by him, pinned by him, and there was nothing to do but feel, and let the sensations wash over me. I hissed, sucking in my breath and it was the last sound I heard before every sense was filled up with Rett.
He rested his forehead on mine, his green eyes filling up my entire field of vision as he watched me. "You're using me to get off," he rumbled, and I wanted to protest but it was so true. No one had ever made me feel this way before. "So I want you to get off," he said, his voice low and commanding. "I'm going to watch you come. When I say so."
"Oh God," I moaned, rising up to my toes.
He pulled back his fingers, making me whine. "No, not yet," he said.
"So bossy," I hissed.
"You have no idea."
I bit my lip as his finger moved faster, granting me the sensation I craved. "You're going to come when I tell you to come, and not one second sooner," he said.
"You fucking..." I hissed, my head lolling to the side. He was dragging me all the way to the pinnacle. Every nerve ending in my body ached for release, every cell in my skin vibrated in unison.
"Do you want to come?" he asked.
"Yes, yes..."
"Say please."
"Please!" I gasped, glaring at him.
He shook his head slightly, his lips turning up in a grin. "Please what?"
"Please let me..." I begged.
He licked his lips, his eyes never darker, and with a growl that I had no choice but to obey, he said. "Come for me."
I felt my whole body bear down, and then suddenly burst open. Fireworks exploded in unison along my spine and I screamed a renegade yelp of surprise, of relief, and above all pleasure.
Rett's fingers moved faster, not letting up, not letting me rest. Quick on the heels of the first orgasm, the second one overtook me, washing over like waves on a beach. If he hadn't been holding me up, I would have slid to the floor, utterly boneless.
But his hands, his forehead on mine, his fingers inside me, his knee propping me up, they all held me there, not until I was done. But until he was.
"Good girl," he said, his voice still thick with that hidden danger. When he slid his fingers from between my legs, I arched against his leg, already ready for more.
He kissed me, and slid his sodden finger to my mouth. "You ever tasted yourself?" he asked me.
I shook my head, watching him wide-eyed. Who was this?
"Lick," he ordered me.
And to my surprise — one surprise after another — I did what he told me, licking the traces of myself from his fingers.
He nodded, then took his fingers from my mouth and brushed them against his lips, then licked them clean. "I think you taste as good as you did in the closet," he informed me. "But I'll need to lick you now. Just to be sure."