Deliver (35 page)

Pressing the tip of the dildo against his rectum, she reached around his hips and gripped the stone-hard girth of his cock. She smiled against his back. “You’re an incredible man.”

“I’m a lucky man.” He panted and rocked against her, helping her work in the first inch. His voice choked. “When you’re done having your way with me, I get to return the pleasure.” He bucked backward. “Now quit talking and work those hips.”

She half-gasped, half-laughed, and smacked his thigh. With a few strokes up and down his erection, she teased him into a trembling frenzy. Then she thrust and held still, her pelvis flat against his ass, allowing him to adjust to the pressure.

His sigh filled the room. That was her cue. She did work those hips, driving into him, her fist jerking his cock, her other hand roaming his chest, his abs, his balls. The leather strap behind the dildo ground against her clit, building her into a panting mess.

Maybe she hadn’t reached his limit, but she’d reached hers. She pulled out, untied his blindfold, and released the chain on his wrist cuffs. As she washed her hands in the sink and stepped out of the strap-on belt, she felt his eyes searing every inch of her skin. But he remained where she’d left him, waiting, watching.

“Where did this obedience come from?” She dried her hands and turned to face him.

He tapped his fingers on his chest, directly over his heart, a fire flickering in his eyes.

She nodded, her throat swelling. “I relinquish control.” Not that she’d ever fully had it.

In four swift strides, he was on her, lifting her, and slamming her back against the nearest wall. His hand pushed between their hips, gripping his cock, and aligning their bodies.

He drove hard and true in one long stroke. They groaned in unison. She hooked her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, and let him pound her into the wall. He moved in urgent thrusts, his lips finding hers. She felt the joining in every part of her body.

The wet slapping sounds of their lovemaking echoed around them, their bodies moving together as one. Guttural breaths. Heated moans. His muscles bunched around her, supporting her, his hips hammering to the tune of her heart.

The hands on her ass clenched, fingertips digging in. Their tongues swiped and slashed and curled together. Her release was climbing hard and fast. Her toes flexed. Her arms around his shoulders wobbled. Her desire knotted, double knotted, and tightened. “Josh,” she gasped into his mouth.

He released her lips, worked his hips, and cupped her jaw, staring into her eyes with an intensity that pushed her over.

The sensations lifted her up, up, up, and burst outward. The ecstasy of stimulation softened her bones, melted her body, and robbed her breathes. He continued to thrust, her pussy convulsing around him, her skin tingling.

Grinding his pelvis against her, his hands squeezed her ass and his smoldering gaze collided with hers. “That was so damned beautiful.”

Then he took her mouth again, gently, letting her feel his words. She kissed him with the same tender tempo, rotating her hips against him, ratcheting his already labored exhales.

A moment later, he dropped his head on the wall beside hers and thrust once, twice. A long groan vibrated his body. His arms coiled around her waist, tightening. His muscles quivered, and his cock jerked deep inside her.

The hum of contentment whispered through them. At last, she was exhausted enough to sleep, and it would be a restful sleep with him wrapped around her in a blanket of protection and love.

They showered, she treated his welts, and they lay between the sheets, chest to chest, sharing breaths. Their legs entwined, and his toes caressed her ankle. She felt him with her entire body, every nerve ending reaching for him.

Through the absence of light, she found his eyes. “You freed me.”

His fingers stroked down her back and rested in the crack of her butt. “Then we’ll tackle the next few days knowing we’re already free.”

The strong beat of his heart against her breast filled her with hope, something she’d never depended on until that moment. “We need to find Mattie.”

“We will.”

She drifted to sleep with a heart full of trust in those two words.

Liv woke however many hours later, sweating, panting, her mind fluttering with erotic images of Josh. Face down on the mattress, her breaths steamed against the pillow. Her pussy was a furnace of wet heat, throbbing with its own demanding heartbeat. And sliding along its slit was a strong and skillful tongue.

The bathroom light cast a subdued luster through the room. She glanced over her shoulder and met Josh’s sparkling eyes peering above her ass cheeks.

With his hands under her hips and his body stretched out between her legs, his gaze burned into hers. He lifted her pelvis, rocking her against his mouth and kissing her pussy with a single-minded ferociousness. He glided his lips through her folds, sucking, curling his tongue, his hips grinding on the mattress.

His groan hummed through her core as he pushed her thighs farther apart and deepened the kiss. His intensity was contagious, shuddering over her spine and coiling her body inside and out.

Her climax exploded, wrenching a moan from her lungs and rolling her eyes into the back of her head. He licked her through the sweep of sensations, thrusting a finger inside her, his breathy noises magnifying the ecstasy.

Then he bit her ass. She shrieked, and he laughed, dragging his lips over her back, nipping and pecking as he crawled toward her head. She buried her face in the pillow. Apparently, his libido was making up for lost time. She sighed, smiling, her voice muffled in cotton. “You’re such a horny slut.”

Chuckling, his mouth reached her nape, sucking the skin below her ear. He covered her body with his hot leaden weight, his thighs bracketing hers. His palms slid beneath her chest, massaging and cupping her breasts. Oh God, the sensation of his touch combined with his body pressing down on her was indescribable.

His cock prodded, wedging into the tight space between her thighs. He reached between them, guiding the connection, and thrust. She clutched at the pillow, arching her back and pushing against him to deepen the drugging stimulation.

The position and angle of her legs pressed together limited his thrusts to short, shallow fucks. She couldn’t get close enough and bowed her body into his. She wanted him to fuck harder, though he was hammering his hips, his cock filling her with each forceful drive.

He was inside her, his body enveloping her and shaking violently with need, yet she wanted more. Couldn’t get enough of him. Her heart pounded against the mattress, and her ribs felt bruised inside. Needy and crazed, she twisted her neck, seeking his mouth. He met her tongue and responded with the same urgency, feeding her his desire, swallowing her exhales.

His toes curled against hers, his powerful body rubbing along the length of her smaller one. One hand shifted beneath her hip, his trembling fingers fumbling around her clit. He found it, circled through her wetness, and flicked it with precision.
Right there. Oh fuck, right there.

“Come,” she breathed against his lips. “Come with me.”

He rotated his hips, rubbed her clit, and ate at her mouth until they stiffened, gasped, and fell together.

When they caught their breaths, he leaned in and nibbled on her earlobe. “Morning.”

An hour later, they realized it was, in fact, afternoon. They stood at the keypad, showered, dressed, and stared at the digital
3:18 PM
on her phone. Despite their shared smiles, unease buzzed between them. Their bodies needed to be fed, so they were forced to leave the room.

She stuffed her phone in the back pocket of her jeans and clutched the door handle. “Let me go down first. I’ll make sure he’s not back and return to get you.”

He reached around her and punched in the code. “We went through this last night. You’re not going down there, or anywhere, without me.”

The door clicked open. She flashed him her most threatening glare. “Then stay behind me and out of sight.”

Through the vacant outer chamber, another keypad, and down the dark stairway they went. Silence greeted her at the bottom. Daylight leaked in through the kitchen window, spreading a sparse glow into the hallway.

She reached back, placed a hand on his chest, and gave him a silent command with her eyes.
Stay.

In the kitchen, dirty soup bowls filled the sink. The refrigerator hummed. Outside the window, the trees rustled beneath the afternoon sun. With a stuttering heart beat, she opened the door to the garage. The van sat alone. She held her breath as she checked the driveway and the front curb through the windows. Van’s Kia wasn’t there, and he had no reason to hide his car from her. Her edginess loosened, but remnants of uncertainty remained.

She returned to the stairway and found Josh gripping the door frame, his impatient eyes blazing from within the shadows. She touched his abs and met a wall of rock-hard tension. “He’s not here. Follow me.”

Leading him down the hallway, a familiar dread gripped her gut. She needed to check Van’s room of horrors, if only to ease some of her lingering anxiety about Van being there. But she didn’t want to go in that room alone.

Hand on the knob, she inhaled deeply. “This is his room. As you know, he is…” How did one sum up morally, mentally, aesthetically, and theoretically damaged? “Fucked up.”

Impatience vibrated from him. “Open the door, Liv.”

She did. And gasped. Stumbling through the room, she spun in a circle, hand over her mouth. An empty mattress. An empty gun cabinet. The drawers hung from the dresser. Empty. The closet door stood open. Empty. No mannequins. No clothes. There was nothing but worn carpet and the musty reek of vacancy. “He’s gone.”

Huge fucking alarm bells blared in her head. Her heart raced and senses heightened. Why would he leave? Was it fear? Was all hell about to break loose?

Josh clasped her fingers, his forehead furrowed in thought. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She rubbed her head. “Van’s a sadistic dick, but he wouldn’t have left me if my life was in danger. Something prompted him to leave in a hurry, though.”

Shards of glass littered the carpet in front of the gun cabinet. The door was a toothy frame hanging on its hinge.

Her stomach turned. “That’s what he hit when I told him about Traquero.” Had he been angry
for
her? Or
at
her? It shouldn’t have mattered, but when it came to Van, her feelings gnarled and bled in complication. She thought back to the last conversation she had with him. “He said he was leaving in the morning to begin his scouting.”

“Only, he left before we got back.” Josh strode out of the room and into the spare bedroom.

A square of ratty green carpet buckled between the walls. The metal blinds on the single window hung lopsided and yellowed by age.

“This one has always been empty,” she said. A room reserved for her, one she’d refused to move into.

He turned and walked down the hall, his gait quickening as he approached the kitchen. “He was pissed about what happened with Traquero. He must’ve packed immediately and blew out of town.”

She ran to keep up with his longer strides. “Why? To kill my mom?” She flinched and clenched her fists against the stabbing reminder. “Or to protect himself from Mr. E?” But why would he need to do that? “Van’s a lot of things, but he’s not a coward.”

Josh veered into the kitchen and opened the fridge door, scanning its contents. Of course, the linebacker was focused on his stomach. Her thoughts were on a crash site, somewhere off the coast of the Keys, and the man who might’ve caused it.

He tossed deli meat and cheese on the counter. Then they sat through a nerve-stretching meal. She picked at her sandwich, her stomach souring with each bite. He barked at her to eat when she sat still too long, his anxiety feeding on hers. They finished in silence, staring at the door to the garage as if it would open any moment and let in all the answers.

Thirty minutes later, they tackled the filing cabinet in the hall closet, the only place in the house that could’ve held a clue to Mr. E’s identity. She’d dug through it countless times, but maybe she’d missed something amongst the bills, receipts for generic items purchased for the house, tax filings, and news articles.

He held up two hands full of paperwork. “Who is Liv Smith?”

“The fake identity Mr. E gave me.”

“Everything is in that name. The rental agreement for the house. Liv Smith.” He thumbed to the next one. “The titles to the vehicles. Liv Smith.” His face twisted beneath clenched eyebrows, his voice rising. “The friggin’ repair bill for the A/C unit. Liv Smith.”

She looked up from her drawer. “I see that.”

“You see that?” His cheeks burned red, and his eyes widened in a state of disbelief. He wiped his forehead with the back of his paper-filled hand. “Not a single document shows Van Quiso paying taxes, consuming groceries, or living here at all. Ever.”

Her hackles rose in defense. “He told me to sign stuff. It was legitimate stuff related to the house. I signed it with a fake name.” But she didn’t realize the name was on
everything
.