Yeah, so I had a little anger management problem. I didn’t actually do it.
“Get. Lost.” I didn’t look at the guy’s face. If I did, he wouldn’t have a motherfucking chance. “Last warning.”
I couldn’t kick Mia’s ass—though she’d all but given me an engraved invitation—but I could rip this bastard a new one.
Mia’s “date” shuffled off, head hung, fat fingers fumbling over his buttons. Poor little disappointed w
illie probably already deflated in his pants.
Asshole.
Mia tucked her pale, probably freezing hands under her arms. When she finally spoke, she didn’t sound mad. Just exhausted. “Why can’t you leave me alone, Tray?”
Tray, not Fox. If she’d tossed my ring name at me, or her usual bravado, or even fury, I would’ve told her to go to hell and gone back inside. Maybe even picked up my own company for the evening, as much of a double standard as it was.
Instead she gave me an honest question, and I unraveled at her feet.
I moved closer, reached out tentatively, and touched her jaw. My fingertips whispered over her skin before she tilted her head up toward mine. Her eyes looked as raw as wounds and as big as manholes. So dark and deep. Drawing me into her until I couldn’t see the escape route.
I wanted to be lost with her. Maybe even to her.
“Do you really want me to?” The words scraped my throat on their way out.
She hesitated for so long I began to believe she wouldn’t answer. Then she slowly shook her head, her soft, damaged lips falling open while she dragged in a breath. “No.”
Stepping toward her, I pressed my arms against the brick wall on either side of her head. The cold air stung my cheeks, but my only focus was the warmth generated from her sweet body wedged against mine. “I’ll make you a deal.”
She shook her head again. “No deals.”
“Yes. It’ll be a really simple one.” I placed my thumb in the shallow dent in her chin. “You want to help someone to get off, I’m happy to oblige you. But you won’t be on your knees.” I boosted her up in my arms so that she had no choice but to lock her legs around my waist. I turned and put my back to the wall, then looked up at her face outlined in the weak glow from the lights at the edge of the lot. She looked otherworldly, almost ethereal. All hollows and shadows. “And the person who’ll be getting off,” I murmured, “will be you.”
I figured she would fight me. That was our routine. Initial attack, block, strike again. Counter, spin, clash. Holding each other on the ropes until I gave in and she walked away.
Not this time.
She slapped her hands on the brick wall above me and started to move, her body riding mine. I’d seen her work out for hours today, watched her bend and twist and stretch, and I’d still never imagined her being able to grind in such a sensual, fluid way.
For a moment, maybe two, I was too stunned to respond in kind. I should’ve known she never gave me what I anticipated, which made me want whatever she dished out even more.
The rock music pumping out of the bar served as her soundtrack as she rocked her pelvis and swayed to the beat. She brushed against my chest, her breasts barely constrained by the thin material of her work shirt, and I swear my eyes crossed. My dick swelled in my tight jeans, begging for relief. Even the icy night air couldn’t cool me down.
I forgot what I’d promised her. Forgot my own name and the blood money she wanted to put between us. I gripped her firm ass and turned again, driving her up against the brick so I could get my hand on her bare flesh above her belt. So soft. Fuck. Her chilled skin felt like silk under my palm, and I slid my fingers higher. Beneath cotton, above the satin of her bra. Climbing until I could roughly cup her breast while I slanted my mouth over hers.
She gasped and thrust her tongue between my lips, all hunger and need. This wasn’t the unsteady, confused woman of the other night. Now she was right here with me, as eager as I was. I had to keep her here.
I had to make her come, fast.
Despite my hand’s insistence on staying right where it was, thank you very much, I lowered it to tug on her zipper. It took some work, but I got her jeans down to just under the swells of her ass. I hated exposing any part of her to the elements in a dirty, grimy alley, but she wasn’t about to let me take her home to wine and dine her. Romance didn’t exist in Mia’s world of violence and desperation and cheap beer. If I didn’t make her see stars before her brain had time to engage, I might never get another chance.
This had to count.
Twining my tongue around hers, I pressed her upward and went to work on my own zipper. She gasped as she realized what I was doing, putting up her first resistance, but I distracted her with long, slow, drugging kisses. Drawing on her tongue, gently razoring my teeth over her sore lip. She moaned and jerked up and down, looking for the friction only my hard cock could give her. Once I’d undone my own jeans and freed my erection, I thrust up into the tight, warm gap between her thighs, realizing at the last second that she wore no panties.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” The expletives left me as fast as a flurry of bullets, reverberating in the alley around us. “You aren’t wearing underwear?”
“You pulled down my jeans,” she gasped. “Didn’t you notice?”
“I wasn’t paying attention. I thought there was a string between your cheeks or something.” I cursed again at my lack of forethought. I had condoms in my wallet, but I hadn’t wanted tonight to go down like this. Doing her in an alley was below her. Hell, it was even below me. “I’m not a goddamn expert on women’s frilly shit.”