With one last lick at my lips, he leans back and gives me a crooked grin. “You should never wear panties. If I was your boyfriend, I’d hide all your underwear so that I can touch your pussy whenever I want, stroke you, make you come.”
I’m panting, clenching so hard deep inside I think I’ll come just like that, from his words, the intensity of his gaze. He tugs on my arm, and I climb over him, tucking my knees at his sides.
“Oh God, at last,” he breathes, his gaze going heavy-lidded and darker than the storm clouds outside. “So beautiful. Need you.”
Need you, too, I think, dazed at how much I want him. The windows are fogged over, and the rain pounds on the roof of the car like a drum. It matches the frenzied beat of my heart.
His brown nipples are bunched up, tight little peaks. I tease them with my fingers. He grabs my hands, kisses the palms, slides them down his chest to the thin dark trail leading to the bulge in his briefs.
My breath quickens. I palm his erection through the cloth and he hisses. Under my hand, he swells more, the tip of his cock pushing under the elastic.
I pull his cock out.
He gasps loudly as it springs free, thick and long and flushed—so sexy—and I clench painfully between my legs. His broad chest rises and falls on a deep breath, and he moves my hand up, to press down on his cock. His face contorts—pleasure, so sharp it hurts—and his cock jerks under my fingers, growing hard as steel.
“My turn,” he mutters, and before I know what he’s talking about, before my brain catches up, he tugs the straps of my dress down and puts his hands on my breasts. He buries his face against them, kissing them, then mouths my nipples, sucking and teasing until I’m breathing hard, aching for him to fill me.
His hands travel down to my hips, and slip under my dress, finding my naked parts, spread wide. I fall forward, bracing my hands on either side of his head, lightheaded, as his fingers rub over my clit and further down, pushing into me.
“So wet,” he whispers. “Fuck. You’re so hot.”
Lights explode behind my closed eyelids when he strokes me inside, while his thumb presses on my clit. Oh God, I can’t… I’m going to come. This is crazy, he’s just only started touching me, and I can’t hold back.
“Seth!” I cry out as I tighten around his fingers, my hips rocking, the rain a counter-beat to a pulse that’s echoing deep in my core.
“Oh fuck…” He pulls his fingers out slowly, panting as harshly as I am. “Need to feel you around my dick, right now. Shit.”
I blink heavy lids while he fumbles with something one-handed. He’s holding his wallet, and he extracts a condom from it. He tears the foil open with his teeth and reaches down between us.
The sight of his cock, so big and wet, sends another pang of pleasure through me. Holy crap. Can’t believe we’re doing this, in the parking lot, a few yards from the zoo entrance.
“Fucking hell,” Seth rasps, rolling the condom over his hard-on, his eyes slits of dark desire. “Want me to put it in you, baby? Can you take it?”
“Yes,” I whisper, my pulse speeding up again. “Please put it in me, Seth.”
“Jesus. Fuck.” His breath is now hissing between gritting teeth. He grips his hard-on, the muscles in his chest seizing. “Lift up.”
I rise on my knees, and he guides his cock between my legs, between my folds, into me. The head presses into my passage, slips inside, inch by inch. Big. Hard. Perfect.
A moan catches in my throat. He clasps my hips, his body arching off the seat, his cock slipping deeper, impossibly wide. Stroking every sensitive part of me. Taking my breath away.
The pressure is mounting in my core again. Feels like I’ll come just from this first thrust, just from the blissed-out look on his handsome face. His eyes flutter closed, open once more, gazing down, where our bodies are joined.
Then his hands on my hips tighten, lifting me up—lowering me again on top of his cock, and we both groan at the rush of pleasure.
God help me. As he does it again, as he fills me up so completely nobody else could ever do it for me, a second orgasm hits me, sharper, sweeter than the first. I grind myself on him, keening his name, unable to keep quiet. I moan with each spasm of pleasure tightening my insides, clenching so hard around his cock I can feel the moment he starts coming.
Can feel his cock surge and jerk, his hold on my hips keeping me down, keeping his hard-on as deep inside me as possible as he groans and stills. His cock is still pulsing inside my pussy, and he pulls on me until I’m lying on his chest, my head tucked between his neck and shoulder.
“I wish,” he mutters against my hair, “that I could stay inside you forever. With you. Like this.”
Not sure what he’s saying, how to interpret his words. Probably just post-sex talk, I think, unable to move or think. I’m a boneless heap on top of him, not caring if anyone passing by can see us, not giving a damn that my breasts are mashed against his chest and his cock is still buried inside me.
Not wanting to accept that soon this will be a crazy memory—the feel of his cock inside me, his arms around me, his warm presence, his boyish grin—and we’ll both go our separate ways.
PART III
You think a dreamcatcher can free you from bad dreams. You think bad luck is something that happens to other people. You think things can’t get any worse.
Until the dreamcatcher breaks, bad luck turns worse and your life swirls down the drain. Then you realize you haven’t known misery until now. You haven’t had nightmares before, only bad dreams. You didn’t know.
Now you do, and still you keep fighting.
Because the last thing to go is hope.
Chapter Seventeen
Seth
Monday morning and Manon’s not in my arms when I wake up. She left late last night, saying she had to wake up early today to talk to her college advisor.
I fucking hate Mondays.
The weekend I spent with her is a magic memory lodged in my brain, making me grin as I shower and brush my teeth, as I stir some instant coffee and hop into my jeans.
Christ. It was so good I should stop thinking about it—’cuz it won’t be on repeat. One week, right? Did we agree on that, or did I imagine it? One week to show her how much she means to me, before she leaves me far behind in her rearview mirror.
And of course speaking of rearview mirrors—fucking hell, the sex in her car yesterday was damn hot. She was so fucking sexy, so soft and warm and…
Fuck. Not mine. She’s not mine. Not for real.
Lucky for her. I’m not who she needs. Can’t take care of her as she deserves. I can barely take care of myself. Need to get my life back on track.
Somehow.
Going back to Damage today. It’s about time. My knee is much better, and I need to ask the guys if anyone can recommend me for a job. Any small gig will do—small enough that nobody will go digging into my records. Now that I can stand on my own two feet, that the dizziness from the concussion has cleared, too, I need to put a patch on my life, regain control.
Zane and Rafe will grill me, for sure. I’ll have to fend their questions, keep them at bay. Bark and bite. Which is so unlike me it’s bound to raise some eyebrows and make them come at me harder, but I’ll hold strong. It’s what I gotta do.
But first… Shivering in my jacket, I wait for the bus. My first stop is an illegal car wash run by the Chinese further north. I’ve worked there before, when I was on the street. The money isn’t enough to buy you more than a cheap meal, but right now it’s all I can think of doing.
Turns out they have a new boss. He doesn’t look too impressed with me and my walking stick, but puts me to work nevertheless.
Five hours later, drenched in sweat and a few bucks richer, I head to Damage. I’m ready. I’m goddamn ready for anything.
I keep repeating the mantra in my head all the way there. I arrive first and settle down to do my cleaning shift for the first time in months. It feels good, although after my stint at the car wash, it leaves me winded, my knee aching, my shoulder throbbing.