His lips tilt up in a half smile, and he shakes his head. “Keep your eyes open. Look at me when you make yourself come, and I’ll give you my tongue and my cock. All you can handle.”
Oh god. His words do the trick, combining with the vulnerability of looking into his dark eyes. A small moanescapes despite my attempt not to be too loud as an orgasm rolls through me.
The spasms haven’t even stopped completely when he yanks me off the bed. I gasp, grasping at him when he plants his hands under my thighs and lifts me high, putting my back against the wall. I don’t have a choice but to sit on his shoulders, my legs draped over his back. He’s face to face with my pussy and he doesn’t waste any time.
Oh fuck, there’s no escape from his relentless mouth like this. There’s nothing to hold onto but him as he keeps me braced against the wall and eats me right out of my mind. It’s everything I can do not to cry out as he quickly brings me right back to the brink again. “Lee,” I whimper. My hips try to pull back involuntarily but are stopped by the wall. It’s so much and so good. I can’t take it. “Oh god. Oh fuck.”
“Lee!” I cry out, shattering into a million pieces. He sucks at my clit steady and slow as I’m racked by constant spasms. It feels like I’m falling and I grasp around desperately for something to hold onto. My hand bumps into the metal curtain rod, knocking it down. It slams to the hardwood floor with a horrible clang, taking the curtains down with it. I couldn’t give a shit. At least not for another few seconds.
“Oh, stop. Stop, Lee.” I’m done and way too sensitive.
He pulls back his head and lifts me off his shoulders but not fast enough. Before I can get my legs unhooked from him, the bedroom door flies open and Justus rushes in, gun in hand.
He stops short, his wide eyes taking in the scene. Lee pulls me off his shoulders and sets me down between him and thewall where his body blocks mine from view. He half turns to look at Justus, who seems to freeze for a moment.
“Shit. Sorry,” Justus says, and I can hear him trying not to laugh. “That was loud. I thought…I didn’t realize you were just…redecorating.”
He quickly retreats, pulling the door shut behind him. “Oh my god,” I whisper, slipping around Lee and rushing to lock the door.
Lee backs up and sits on the edge of the bed. Then he bursts out laughing.
“It’s not funny!” I hiss, smacking his arm with every word. It only makes him laugh harder. “Why didn’t you lock the door?”
“You were the last one in.” He barely gets the words out. Tears form in his eyes as his chest shakes. His uncontrollable laughter is hard to resist, and a few giggles spill out of me. I’ve seriously never seen him laugh like this. It’s almost worth the embarrassment.
“Imagine his point of view,” he gasps. “He’s drunk, hears a loud bang, thinks someone is attacking us or breaking in. Only to burst into the room, gun drawn, and see my bare ass with you on my shoulders.”
“If someone breaks in now, he’s going to knock first and ask permission to enter to shoot the intruder,” I say, heading to the dresser to get some clothes to sleep in.
Still laughing, Lee grabs me from behind and tosses me on the bed. “That doesn’t mean I’m done with you.”
He isn’t kidding, and by the time he’s finished, I couldn’t give a shit what Justus saw. When he pulls me into his armsto sleep, contentment wraps around me. This is the first good day I’ve had in so long. Things are finally looking up.
Lee, Landon, and Justus are gathered around the kitchen table, discussing their plans for tomorrow evening. Lee’s going to talk to the man he’s been told to kill and try to figure out who might want him dead. Justus will go with him while Landon stays here with me. It’s risky, and I don’t like it, but there isn’t much choice. They’ve spent the last couple of days focused on tracking down the prostitute who got that loser to deliver the dress but haven’t had any luck. We can’t just sit and wait to see what happens next.
It’s been a long day of work, so I excuse myself to go take a bath. I love Lee’s bathroom. When he renovated it to add a standing shower, he kept the old clawfoot bathtub that’s wonderfully deep. It’s become one of my favorite places to relax, and I’ve been looking forward to it for hours. I even stopped on the way home to pick up some new bubble bath.
The weather has been swinging wildly from cold to warm, as it often does in Kentucky in December. In some years, Christmas can be seventy degrees and others have us buried in ice and shivering through below zero temperatures. Today was beautiful. Even after dark it’s still nice enough for me to open the bathroom window before I dim the light and inch my way into the steaming bath.
I sink lower in the tub until the water reaches my shoulders, letting the heat seep into my muscles and looseneverything. The scent of wet leaves and earth drifts in, mixing with the faint smoke that curls up from the joint between my fingers. I angle my exhale toward the open window, letting it vent out into the night.
From the front of the house, the guys’ voices carry. I’m not able to make out words, but I hear Lee and Landon talking, then Justus’s laugh. The sound of them is comforting. I sit up to extinguish the joint in the ashtray on the small table at the end of the tub, then lie back and close my eyes. My head rests against the smooth porcelain, and my limbs feel heavy in the best way, floating and loose.
I let myself drift and their voices fade into the background. I’m not asleep but in that wonderful space just before it where thoughts blur and time loses its meaning. My breathing slows and my mind feels gloriously empty for once.
A sudden weight lands on the top of my head and hot water closes over my ears. All sound is cut off abruptly and replaced by a dull roar. Shock freezes me for a fraction of a second before my body jerks, and I clamp my mouth shut on instinct, holding my breath.
Shit, I fell asleep and slipped under the water. My attempt to sit up quickly kills that theory when the weight increases on my head. Someone’s holding me down.
No.
No no no.
I reach for the hand on my head, desperately trying to pry it loose, but it’s wrapped tightly in my hair, and another slams onto my shoulder. Panic seizes me, and my eyes leapopen to see nothing but a blur of soap bubbles that instantly burn. My arms flail and bang against the edges of the tub while my feet scrabble across the slick porcelain bottom, searching for leverage, for anything to push against. The hands don’t budge. They keep my face submerged, unyielding as I thrash and fight to get free.
My lungs start to burn within seconds and the muscles in my chest tighten, demanding air. The instinct to inhale is like a live animal clawing at me, violent and overwhelming. Terror like I’ve never felt grips me. I have to resist breathing in, or water will rush in instead and it’ll be over.
Conscious decisions are hard when my body is reacting on pure survival instincts. I kick hard, my heel slams into the side of the tub, and pain shoots up my leg. Twisting my hips, I try to roll over, hoping I can get my legs under me, but I can’t do it. The burn in my chest becomes agonizing as my lungs spasm and beg for air.
