He lowered me onto the bed then straddled me. I took in the layout of the room: bed, nightstand, dresser, no computer.
Once he passed out, I could do what I was supposed to do by coming here tonight.
“Shirt, gorgeous.” He helped me take off my black-knit V-neck then groaned as he leaned over me, taking my nipple into his mouth, suckling then swirling his tongue around the pinkish glow.
“Harder.” I wanted pain. It was my reminder that I was real.
He drew it into his mouth, and I arched my back into him hoping he’d bite down, but he didn’t. Instead, he placed kisses across my breastbone to my other breast and squeezed it like it was a friggin’ stress ball.
“I need inside you.” As soon as he said it, I knew this wasn’t going to happen. I’d thought maybe I could, but not like this. This wasn’t the right guy, right time or right reason.
I’d have to live with my pathetic a little longer.
He slid off the bed and for a brief second, I thought of running. Escape. But it was in that brief second before I got my shit together.
I leaned up on my elbow and watched as Lionel lowered his zipper. Shit, I needed Plan B in action now. “How about you wait here and get naked and I’ll find us some drinks.”
An image of Deck flashed before me. His disappointment. His glacier expression. The fucked-up thing was I was wet just thinking about him. It was how I got through this shit. Deck always made me feel safe and protected, and yet he had no idea I hadn’t been safe since he left when I was sixteen.
I bolted off the bed the second I heard the front door to his apartment. “You have a roommate?” Shit, what the hell. I was told he lived alone.
He shook his head.
“Fuck.” No roommate. That meant … I snagged my top off the floor at the same time the bedroom door burst open, the wood splintering where the faceplate met the door frame.
“Jesus.” Lionel swung around and staggered back, hitting the bed and falling onto it.
I gaped at Deck standing in the doorway, his eyes scanning the room as he did recon. Always in military mode even when breaking in some poor sap’s place to drag his dead best friend’s sister out. Shit, what the hell? He was supposed to be in New York. This was planned for when he was in New York.
“Get dressed.”
His voice was the usual deep, abrupt sound, but I noticed a slight vibration to it. I knew Deck. I was addicted to him and his darkness, the pain always lingering in the depths of his eyes matching my own. Yet, that rumble in his voice I’d never heard before.
Goose bumps blazed across my skin as if I’d just touched an electric fence. “Weren’t you supposed to be in New York, sweetpea?” My guess, Matt had been on the phone to Deck the second I showed up at Avalanche tonight. It was only an hour-and-a-half flight back to Toronto. This was a total screw-up. A warning from him would have been nice.
“Ah, fuck. Boyfriend? Hey, man, I didn’t touch her,” Lionel said, like the wimp-ass he was. He crawled off the opposite side of the bed as far away from Deck as he could.
Shit, couldn’t blame the guy. Deck was freaking intimidating and no doubt was carrying a gun and knife or two … or three. Deck never went anywhere without a gun, even if it was against the law to carry a handgun in Toronto. I didn’t think Deck cared much for laws, though. Besides, he knew people and that gave him a pass.
“Now.” Deck’s voice thundered through the room.
I pulled my bra back down then tugged on my top. It was inside out and backwards, the white tag showing in the front beneath my chin. I was attempting to turn it around without taking it off again and was having difficulty because really, I was a little freaked out that Deck caught me half-naked with a guy. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I was always careful.
Damn it. I had the top up over my face, blinding me, but I hadn’t taken my arms out.
Knuckles brushed against the bare skin of my abdomen as the edge of my top was grabbed. I sucked in my breath. I knew his touch, his scent; I’d recognize it anywhere. It was embedded in my brain like the negative side of a magnet rolling around, searching for its positive side. It only calmed when he was near.
Suddenly, my shirt was yanked off. Then, before I could focus or say ‘what the hell’, it was back on.
Damn, he smelled good. In my fantasies, he did too, and I had a lot of fantasies about him. At first, I fought them, but now I begged for them to haunt my nights. It was the only way I could have him. Any girl would romanticize Deck. Over six foot, with dark eyes and tatted-up, muscular arms—hard and untouchable. Actually, you’d be stupid to touch Deck, but I was good at stupid and often teased him by purposely touching him.