The Negotiator (Professionals 7)

My hand pressed against hers.

My hips thrust.

And she cried out her orgasm against my palm as I took her as deep as her body would allow, feeling her pussy milk my orgasm out of me, seeming to sap every ounce of my strength in doing so, my body half-folding over hers as I struggled to get my breath again.

Eventually, I came back down into my body, my hand releasing her mouth, my other sliding from between her legs as I slipped out of her, giving her ass one hard slap as I retrieved my pants.

She let out a choked squeak at the contact, arms bracing wide on the sides of the sink, taking slow, deliberate breaths, not even bothering to try to retrieve her panties as I discarded the condom, and got my pants back in place.

There was something more than a little endearing in the way she seemed to forget everything when I made her come.

Even as Alexander and Laird came back up the path, likely making their way in our direction.

I stooped down, dragging her panties back into place, flipping her skirt down, and moving away before the door opened, letting in an agitated Alexander and an exasperated Laird who had been stuck on teenager babysitting duty since we arrived.

“What did he do?” I asked, glancing between them, keeping Melody in my peripheral as her hand slipped to the sink, turning it on, washing.

“That girl we thought he was visiting with in town? She’s a thirty-something-year-old divorcee.”

“Well, older women are a family tradition for first times,” Melody offered, shooting me a teasing smile as she turned, drying her hands.

“Who said it is my first time?” Alexander shot back, chest puffing out. Which pretty much just proved it was. True confidence—like that which came from sexual experience—was quiet. Being loud just said he had no fucking idea what he was doing with a woman yet.

“Does she know he’s underage?” I asked, shaking my head. He was tall and strong for his age. There was still a little baby fat in the face, but other than that, I could see him being confused for eighteen.

“She knows,” Laird told me. “I told her.”

“Hence the sulking,” I agreed, jerking my chin toward my brother.

“I’m not fucking sulking,” he shot back, clearly making my point.

“Watch how you talk to your brother,” Melody scolded him before I could.

“This is a family matter,” he shot back, in full-on intolerable teenager mode.

“Watch it, Alexander,” I growled, making him stiffen slightly, realizing he was stepping over a line, one I thought I had made clear just an hour before. “You want to prove you are mature enough to spend your time with grown women, learn how to speak to the ones in this house with a little respect.”

“I hate you sometimes,” Alexander hissed as he pushed past me, making a beeline for his room.

As he went he was chased by Melody’s voice, “Then he must be doing something right!” she called at his retreating form. “He’s a perfectly nice kid. Right up until he’s a little shit,” she said, smiling.

“Welcome to adolescence,” I agreed.

“I kind of understand why all my rich clients ship their high-school aged children off to some boarding school or another. Let them deal with the backtalk and idiocy, send them back when they are more fully formed individuals. Who don’t blast terrible music,” she added as the stereo came on a few floors above, making the walls shake.

“I’ll have a word with the woman,” I told the tired-looking Laird.

“Thank you,” he said, moving off, leaving us alone once again.

The song above us changed to something louder, more angsty, with a baseline that cut right through your brain even a few floors below.

“If I have kids, do you think they will be this obnoxious?”

“Probably,” I agreed, moving in beside her.

“It really makes you develop an understanding for those species who eat their young, y’know?” she added when Alexander decided to lend his vocals to the chorus, making our shoulders pull up to our ears. He never could carry a tune. At high decibels, they splattered around tonelessly.

“I hear they’re sweet when they’re little,” I told her.

“That’s how they get you,” she said, nodding. “They come out fat and squishy and completely in love with you. Then they morph into hormone monsters with more opinion than brains. That’s why parents take so many pictures and videos of the fat and squishy phase. To help remind themselves that they love the teenaged terrorists who take over their body in fifteen years.”

Listening to her babble, watching the animated confusion and amusement and wonder play out across her face, I amended my thought from earlier.

Maybe I was a little bit in love with her already.

Just a little bit.

But it had started.

And I wanted to see where it would go.