Sneak Attack (Tapped Out 2)

wer to caress the flesh I knew as intimately as my own, I expected her to gasp. To beg. Not to twist away and pant as if I’d plunged a knife into her chest.

“What?” I jerked up her shirt again while she fought to pull it down. “Let me see.”

I drew her toward the window and turned her into the shaft of light, swallowing hard at the black tattoo outline covering her ribs. I had a tat in that spot too. Those bastards hurt. Even in the dim light, I could make out the roses and shaded gloves.

Fucking boxing gloves.

Her chin lifted and in her eyes was a demand. Don’t ask. I wouldn’t, but not because she’d silently instructed me not to. That tattoo was why she’d left me hanging for hours? It sure as hell hadn’t been there this morning when I’d had her luscious breasts in my mouth.

The better question was why it was there. The gloves might’ve been a metaphor. God knows she was fighting now. Would always be fighting. Or was she trying to give me a message I refused to hear? Did she want to start fighting again?

“Mia—”

She stretched up and locked her hands around my head, hauling my mouth to hers. Cutting off her name, turning it into a groan of pure pleasure as she pressed her breasts against my chest. Having her shirt and bra between us didn’t lessen the sensation. If anything, it amplified the friction of her skin against mine. I bit her lower lip, my annoyance level rising in tandem with the arousal I couldn’t stop. My body was primed to respond to hers.

That didn’t mean I had to like it.

She scraped her nails down my back, deep and fast, probably leaving welts behind. She liked marking me. I moved my mouth to her neck, forcing her head back until I could suck on the throbbing pulsepoint just beneath her jaw. Pulling hard, intending to leave some marks of my own. She writhed, already halfway to mindless, and I spanned my hand over her ribs.

Then, slowly, oh so slowly, closed my palm until her moan caught in her throat and her eyes flew open. Her lips trembled apart and I crushed them under mine while I squeezed my fingers and swallowed her whimpers like breath.

She wanted pain. I gave it to her. Even when it hurt me to harm her in any way, I gave her what she needed. It didn’t matter if I didn’t fully understand. I loved her.

“You’re mine,” I growled, grabbing her hair again with my other hand. Pulling until I tasted the tears that spilled onto her cheeks. Sometimes she cried during sex. That was the only time she allowed her emotions out of the steel cage she’d shoved them into. Mine were there too, trapped with hers. She held my heart in her hands.

I pulled harder on her hair, on her lips, my hand still flexing over her tender, hot skin. “Say it,” I demanded, grazing my teeth over her lower lip. “Fucking tell me who you belong to.”

She shook her head, subtly fighting me even as she arched into my strokes like a kitten needing a scratch. Her side had to be screaming yet she moved into my caresses, seeking them every time I drew my hand away. She was a kinky little thing, more so than I’d ever realized when I’d taken her that first time against the rough brick wall next to the bar. Though she knew far too much in some ways, in others she’d been inexperienced.

She wasn’t now. We’d lost a lot of our innocence together. Her about sex. Me about intimacy. Both of us about learning how to feel. We were still learning.

I tightened my grip on her side. Her agonized moan triggered my cock to lurch against my sweats. My breaths shortened. The sound in my ears could’ve been my heartbeat or a tidal wave. She was quivering, and I knew if I drew her pants down she’d be one gush away from orgasm. I was hurting her, and her tears were flowing faster, but she kept rocking against me. Wordlessly asking for more. I didn’t believe in hurting women. Ever. With my background, doing so seemed like a sin. But I loved Mia so I much that I would do anything for her. Even make her bleed. So what if I couldn’t look at myself after? What the hell did it matter?

She slammed her hands against my chest, forcing me backward until my spine hit the window. The coolness from the glass burst through the furnace of heat that still pumped through me from my workout and my fury. The anger hadn’t left me. I’d begun to think it never would. But the need for her burned through it all.

When she yanked down my pants and cupped my cock, I threw back my head, centered by the blast of pain against my skull. Her palm worked me quick and hard. She was merciless in her pursuit of my orgasm. Only sheer will held it off. I hauled her up until our mouths clashed again. Her tongue pumped between my lips, and I sucked on it with equal fervor. Goddammit, I wanted to swallow her whole.

Before I could process what had happened, she’d shed her jeans and scaled my body like a rope at the gym. Her nails sliced over the window casement next to my head as she struggled for the angle she sought. Then she wrapped herself around me and took my dick so deep that all I could release was an agonized groan.

Words, thoughts, sanity failed me.

Shouts echoed in my head with no outlet. I soaked myself in her, steeped myself in the sensations only she could bring. She stole the breath from my chest. Altered the beat of my heart. My gaze riveted on hers, though it took all I possessed to focus on the eye of my storm.

“Yours,” she whispered, voice raw, eyes still streaming as she started to ride.

3

Mia

I’d survived an earthquake.

Slumped against the window, I brought my hand to my throbbing side, unsurprised when it came back wet with blood. Not a lot, just enough to prove we’d played rough. Again. I loved that he wasn’t afraid to take me there, every time.

I wanted violence from him. He wanted romance from me. It shouldn’t have frightened me so much to wonder when that bill would come due.

Pushing myself to my knees, I sucked in air and lifted my head. The room was empty. Tray never left me in this kind of shape—half naked, sweaty and bloody, with what we’d done still dampening my thighs—which meant one thing.

He couldn’t stand the sight of me. Or worse, he couldn’t stand the sight of himself.