Sonata (North Security 3)

It’s wrong to touch her with the memory of my father on her lips. With the tragedy of my mother on her mind. I should definitely walk away. Find a bottle of vodka. Lose myself in a hard, dreamless sleep. Instead I nudge my cock against her sex. “Like this.”

“By making me feel good?” Her tone challenges me to do worse.

I reach around her body and slip my hand beneath her panties. Smooth skin. Warm damp. I find her clit with unerring precision. There’s no slow unfolding. My touch forces her towards an orgasm. Her shattered breath reveals how close she is. A pinch between my thumb and forefinger. That’s all it takes for her to buck against me in a wild climax. It’s both punishment and reward for standing up to me. I cup her pussy in wordless possession as she comes back into her body.

Another nudge with her ass. I flinch from the pleasure.

“What about you?” she whispers.

“There’s no comfort for me,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to her temple. I settle her carefully on the bed, exactly like I found her, except her limbs are more lax. Part of her wants to object, but the endorphins have their way. They drag her down into dreams, leaving me to hold her through the night.

CHAPTER SIX

The piano has over 12,000 parts, 10,000 of which are moving.

Josh

It probably looks like I’m lost to the world, fists flying against the bag, sweat dripping down my body, a long stretch of violence tainting the air. She probably thinks I don’t notice her. I can’t look directly. That would scare her away, like a hare running to ground. There’s only the impression of her in the mirror—her long body encased in a leotard and tights, her dark hair pulled high.

Apparently Bethany uses the gym for her own practice.

That means I’m the intruder. Well, thank God for small favors.

Liam prefers to use the outside for his practice. A ten-mile run interspersed with push-ups and other old-fashioned drills. He’d probably climb a fucking tree like Tarzan. I prefer the air-conditioned sterility of a high-end gym, such as the one in the duke’s chateau.

I planned to find her, but this is better. There’s more than enough room for both of us to practice here. A large area with mats and mirrors. Training equipment. A sauna. There’s even a goddamn hot tub for soothing aching muscles, and I spare a thought to imagining Bethany using it naked, the way the bubbling water would obscure and reveal her.

Is she brave enough to come inside when I’m here? If she runs away I’d follow her.

One, two. One, two. Even knowing she’s there doesn’t blunt my blows to the bag. Hell, it probably makes them more powerful. The sexual frustration has to go somewhere. I feel her eyes on me. It occurs to me that she’s doing more than hiding right now. More than deciding whether or not to come in. She’s watching me. Maybe admiring me? Lusting after me? Fuck.

Even the possibility makes me hard.

I tossed my shirt down an hour ago. My muscles are bunched and thick from hard use. She works with athletic men in her fancy Cirque du Monde, but there’s a difference between muscles made for performance and those honed on the battlefield.

Sweatpants hang low on my hips. Low enough I can imagine pushing them down with Bethany on her knees in front of me. It wouldn’t matter that I’m sweaty. She’d hold her mouth open, her tongue pink and pointed. I’d pump my dick until I spilled white come across her lips.

With the image in my mind I have to stop punching the bag. I rest my forehead against the leather, panting, fighting the urge to touch her.

What a terrible fucking time she chooses to finally enter.

“Hello, Josh,” she says in such a reasonable, calm tone that I’m desperate to press her against the mirror. I want to smear it with her spit, her sweat. Her come. It takes a decent amount of effort to calm the boil in my blood. I’m still erect when I turn around. No hiding that in fucking sweatpants.

“You decided to come in?”

She notices, of course. Her brown eyes widen. God, if she didn’t look so much like a doe caught in the woods. “I knew you wouldn’t bother me in Fransisco’s house.”

“You knew that, did you?”

She turns away dropping a bottle of water against the wall. “Don’t stop on my account. I’m going to use the treadmill to warm up before I use the mats.”

Here’s the thing. She has to bend over to put her water bottle down, which means revealing her ass in its tight glory. If it were a little less perfect, maybe I could have walked away. I could have turned around and punched the bag hard enough to break my hand—and maybe that would kill my boner.

Probably not, though.

“Don’t you stretch first?” I ask, grabbing a towel from a bench. I wipe my face, doing my best to appear harmless. It’s a bit like a wolf putting on a granny cap and climbing into bed.

“Yes.” She draws out the word, stalling.