The place smelled like sweat, booze, sex. Like who he used to be. The thought hit him hard. Had he been kidding himself all these years?
She pushed open the bathroom door and stepped inside. The second she crossed the threshold, she lifted her chin, offering him her throat as if she already knew he wouldn’t be gentle.
He shut and locked the door, then leaned against it, vest open, hip angled, letting her look. She stared at him, and a visible shiver rolled through her. She liked the danger. Her tongue slipped out to wet her bottom lip, and his already throbbing dick pressed hard against the placard of his jeans.
“What are you waiting for?”
She saw an object. Most women did. Face. Body. Heat. Not the man underneath who needed more than praise for how he looked.
He smiled faintly. “I don’t chase tail. It comes to me. Show me what you want.”
Her eyes flashed and her breath caught. “Gladly.” She walked up to him, her hand went over the hard muscles of his chest, over the flat disk of his nipple. Inside, he was on fire, but he showed her no response. “You are gorgeous,” she whispered. “I’ve never seen anyone like you.”
“Do something useful with that mouth.”
He was bored with the script. Tired of the worship. Tired of being reduced to skin and muscle and bone. Was there even one woman out there with enough substance to tell him to fuck off, put him in his place, show him that he was more than flesh and muscle and bone.
She moved in close, the space between them empty in a way that had nothing to do with inches. She cupped him through the denim, squeezed, and he closed his eyes. “Now, I’m interested,” he murmured. His body was burning with that wildfire blaze that never seemed to be extinguished. He’d funneled it into his study of stoicism, but everything he learned seemed to be a jumbled mess, and everything that had made sense before didn’t now.
She pulled at his belt buckle, released his zipper, relieving the pressure against his erection, but creating a stronger, undeniable kind of tension and anticipation instead. Pushing both his briefs and jeans off his hips, her mouth trailed down his chest.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, taking in his junk, hard and jutting toward his abs. He closed his eyes to hold on to even a piece of himself who was decent and whole, but it slipped through his fingers like water.
She grasped him, sending her thumb over the crown of his cock, the moisture slicking his skin, his hips moved with a jackknifing jerk.
“How about you worship me on your knees,” he said, voice low and cold.
Her tongue traced along him, slow and deliberate. Heat shot through him, hard and immediate. When she took him deep, mouth closing around him, a rough sound dragged from his throat.
He slid his fingers into her hair, not gentle, not cruel, just claiming control. He watched the wall instead of her, forcing himself to focus on sensation alone. The rhythm built. Slow strokes. Slick heat. Pressure gathering low and heavy.
He told himself it was only physical. Only friction. Only nerve endings firing.
When she tightened her grip and increased the tempo, his hips began to move with her, shallow thrusts, controlled but fraying.
That was enough.
He pulled her up and took her mouth, hot and hard. Tequila and want and something reckless on her tongue. He didn’t soften the kiss. He didn’t pretend this was anything but hunger.
“God, you’re trouble,” she whispered against his jaw.
“You have no idea.”
His voice barely sounded like his own.
She stroked him again and something snapped loose inside him. He turned her, pressed her against the sink, her dress shoved up, her hands braced against the counter. He wasn’t gentle. He didn’t try to be.
He pushed into her without hesitation. Deep. Hard. No teasing.
Just need.
Just movement.
Just the brutal, desperate cadence of a man trying to fuck the truth out of his own blood.
She gasped, pushed back against him, wanting the force he usually kept leashed. He gripped her hips and drove into her again, harder, chasing the roar in his veins. The photo flared in his mind. Derrick’s face. His mother’s voice. The hollow terror that he was made of someone else’s violence.
Every thrust was denial. Every slam of his hips a rebellion against resemblance.
