Dulce

10

After a few growing pains, the days start to blend as the monotony of school life begins to wear on me. I feel like I’m stuck in a time loop, repeating everything over and over until I feel like my eyeballs are going to pop out of my head.

I’ve made no headway with the case. I have eliminated some people from the list, so I suppose that’s something. Fewer suspects are better than nothing, but I still haven’t figured out the key players. I’ve snooped and spied like a good little operative and nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

The only thing I’ve gained from being here is an appreciation for cafeteria food and an acute feeling of loneliness.

The days are not so bad. I have Scott, Sarah, and Casey to keep me distracted, but at night I go to bed feeling like a live wire, thrashing around with so much untapped energy that it makes sleeping impossible.

We’ve slipped into a sort of routine in the house. Our interactions are minimal at best, but each one is charged with so much heat, I’m surprised we don’t all spontaneously combust.

And then there are the eyes. Aslanov’s eyes, the way I feel them on me all the time, watching me. It’s both unnerving and makes me feel alive.

But when those lights go out, and I’m alone once more, I can’t pretend any longer.

Everly has friends and hot guys panting after her, and all this weird sexual chemistry going on with Aslanov. But Dulce? What does she have? Who does she have?

That’s when the thought of Griff drifts in. Images of dimpled smiles and strong arms holding me tight. They slip past my defenses and leave me feeling lost, and I can’t quite figure out why.

I haven’t seen him since I walked away from my last op. He was a means to an end. So why is his memory still haunting me like a fucking ghost?

The creak of a door opening has me turning my head to see Cain walking out of his room. He heads toward me, navigating himself around the sofa as if he were awake, before he climbs in beside me.

He pulls me to his chest, and I let him like I did last night and the night before and the many before that. Because here, alone in the dark, he’s all I’ve got. The moody asshole by day has become somewhat of my savior by night, but I can’t ever tell him that. I drift off to sleep as he plays with a strand of my hair.

I’m woken later with a mouth between my legs. I wrap my fingers in his hair and hold him to me as I come, biting my lip to hold back my screams.

He crawls up my body until his lips find mine, and I can taste myself on his tongue. I sink into kiss, into him. When I feel his cock at my slick entrance, I spread my legs wider, welcoming him inside me, craving the connection.

I wrap my legs around him as he moves inside me, one of his hands on my hip pulling me into his thrusts, the other in my hair as his lips move across my jaw and down my throat.

I gasp, and then his mouth is against mine once more, swallowing it down as I arch up into him. My already sensitive body feels overstimulated as wave after wave of sensation washes over me. Each thrust pushes me higher, each drag of his tongue against mine pulls the line between us tighter and tighter until it snaps, and I come on a choked whisper as I feel him spill himself inside me.

He’s still for a moment, our breathing in perfect sync, before he lifts himself away and climbs off the bed, walking back to his room and closing the door behind him.

I lie there for a second before it sinks in.

He’s still asleep.

Oh, Jesus, he’s still asleep.

A whimper escapes me before I can stop it. Movement catches my eye, as if the noise I made startled it. That’s when I see Aslanov in his doorway watching me, and from the tent in his boxers, I’d say he was watching us.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t realize,” I whisper, feeling that god-awful loneliness seep back into my body.

He doesn’t say anything. He walks over to me and scoops me up, and carries me to the bathroom across the corridor. I don’t process the fact that I’m naked and so is he, mostly. Right now, I’m swaying between panic and numbness.

He sits me on the counter as he runs a bath, adding something sweet-smelling to the water. I stare at a spot on the wall, wondering what I’m supposed to think or feel now, but I’ve got nothing.

When he picks me up once more and lowers me into the water, I look up at him, surprised to find my eyes bleary from unshed tears.

“Don’t,” he whispers as he takes a sponge and starts washing me.

“Did I do something wrong?” Because I’m not sure if I’m the bad guy here.

“No, Everly.”

“Did he?”

He looks at me and cups my jaw in such a tender way that I have to swallow hard to keep the tears from falling.

“Did it feel wrong?”

I think about it and shake my head. “No.”

“Then don’t worry about the what-ifs.”

I sit quietly while he washes me, not even flinching when his hand slips between my legs, cleaning away another man’s cum from my body.

Once done, he drains the water and lifts me out, drying me gently with the towel before carrying me to his room. He sits me on the edge of his bed and tugs one of his T-shirts over my head.

“Lie down. I’ll go get you some water.”