Sinner (The Hades Squad #1) (19 page)

Jesus, she was a fast learner.

And that outfit said she'd been thinking about him, maybe even weaving lurid fantasies.

“No touching,” she warned, clambering onto the mattress, a dampened towel dangling from one hand. “My turn to touch.”

The towel felt like the gates to paradise, warm and moist, and all he could think about was being inside her moist heat.

“I see you remembered
Debbie Does Dallas
.”

“You said that only a convent girl could beat the cheerleader fantasy.” She sent the flirtiest side-glance his way.

She took her time, combing his pubic hairs with her fingers and the damp terry. Her exhales were hot and heavy on his dick. Her palms swaddled his balls.

“My turn,” Sinner declared, when he couldn't stand the sweet torture anymore and grabbed the lapels of her schoolgirl shirt.

The buttons on her high-necked blouse slipped and slid from his fingers. “Are these glued on?”

Destiny swatted his hands away, freed the buttons in record time, and then slipped the garment off her shoulders to reveal the pink bra she'd worn in the Alaskan cabin.

“That bra stars in my fantasies.”

“Really.” One corner of her mouth quirked. She bounded off the bed and did a little bump and grind.

Linc reached for her breasts.

“Uh-uh,” she snapped. “
I'm
doing this.”

Long years, or so it seemed, of sheer torture followed as she peeled the slip of flannel over her hips, and a matching pink thong played hide-and-seek with the Catholic-bad-girl skirt. Then she stood there in her bra and pantie, tall and succulent and spicy and salacious, the white knee socks suggesting innocence lost to
him.

She twirled, did another bump and grind, and the wisp of material hugging the crack of her ass played the red flag to his engorged bull.

Linc charged, arms around her waist, her back to his chest.

He ate at her neck. “This is gonna be fast. I’m on a hair trigger.”

While he spoke, Linc shifted her to face him, pulled the pink material off one breast, and suckled the whole areola into his mouth, tracing the brown circle, licking the tip over and over, until she grabbed the back of his neck and growled, “Bite.”

When he didn't comply but moved around to his other bounty, she wailed, “Linnnnc.”

Fingers torturing one breast by rolling the nipple, he teased the other with soft pinches, and she arched, muttering under her breath. He ceased thumb torturing the other areola and drew the sweet flesh between his lips.

His mouth worked the taut peak; he looked up at her and marveled at the passion in her face. The way she threw her head back, the erratic pulse in her throat, and the mist of perspiration shiny on her shoulders under the soft lighting had him ready to fire.

“Harder.”

His stones readied, knotted and drawn, on a heartbeat.

Linc straightened. He shifted her on the mattress, careful to set her in the middle of the bed, and fluffed her inky locks over the pillow.

“D'you remember that last time in Alaska?” he asked, his voice coarse as if the gravitational force of the universe had a stranglehold on his lungs. His slid his hand over her belly and dipped a thumb into her navel, teasing, circling.

“On the wall?” Her eyes fixated on his hand. “Oh yeah. I remember it in the elevator ride to my floor every morning, in the middle of department meetings, when it gets quiet at night and I can't sleep. I remember
everything
.”

“You're gonna kill me, woman.”
Condom.
He grabbed his pants from its wacky position half-on the side table and extracted the foil packet.

Before he could turn back to her, Destiny slipped her arms around his chest, pressed hot, wet kisses on his spine, and soft fingers caught his dick in a maddening, barely there hold. “I'm on birth control, remember? You don't need that.”

“I am so fucked. I forgot.” He captured her hands with his and stilled the slight trailing of her nails. Linc glanced over his shoulder and found her sweet face right there, her nose grazing his. “I’m riding the edge, and I fucking came like a humping camel not minutes ago. I haven't gone bareback in decades. It will be sheer heaven feeling your pussy walls clamping my dick.”

She bit his shoulder, those black eyes never leaving his.

“Don’t want to hurt you., but I’m about to lose it.”

She locked her hands around his dick.

He lost it.

Lust dazed, he flipped them so she lay on top. He set her in place, one leg on either side of his hips. Not trusting his control, he demanded through gritted teeth, “Mount me. You do it.”

She licked her lips.

May as well have knotted a rubber band around his balls.

She leaned closer, palms splayed over his nipples. Her little pants trailed embers across his pecs, his breastbone. One tooth snagged her bottom lip when her gaze fixed on his dick.

She lifted one leg, put all her weight on one arm, and circled the head of his dick with her free hand.

Linc moaned, clenching the soft cotton sheets, mesmerized by her rapt concentration.

Precum leaked, and his testicles drew tighter.

She positioned his dick at her folds.

At the whisper of friction, heat swarmed and buzzed his entire groin. The visual as she sank in agonizing slowness down his cock made his eyes cross.

Her sweet pussy fanned his burning balls, leaving slick wetness behind. Every pubic hair pulled and prickled when she tried different movements, a tiny circle, a side-to-side rock, straight up and down.

“Fuck.” Linc groaned. He balled his hands. He raked her face, entranced by her sooty lashes, half concealing the momentary glazing of her eyes, the slight rise in her brows, the gasp when she hit a sweet spot.

“Hmm.” She bent closer.

“Oh”—closer yet—“oh, oh, oh.”

With each “oh,” she contracted and convulsed, her walls a blazing vise clamping his dick. He gripped her hips, held her down and thrust once, twice. She exploded around him, her eyes rolled back, and her nails scraped his damp chest and forged through the fine hairs.

“One more,” he commanded, not knowing if his willpower would hold. He drove into a paradise of heat and slickness and sensation as her pussy claimed him.

His stones contracted.

Linc clenched his teeth, splayed his hand low on her wet pussy curls, and fingered her clit.

“Linc, Linc,” she screamed.

Her pussy fisted his dick.

The sharp spasms of her pussy were too potent to fight. He cupped her bottom cheeks and angled her higher. Hammered faster and deeper, arching off the mattress and plunging into a vertical free fall.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God.” She collapsed on his chest, her breath cooling his damp skin.

Too sated to think, Linc settled a hand on the curve of her ass and another mid-back, closed his eyes, turned to drop a kiss on her forehead, and sighed.

“Mmm.” She brushed her lips on his chest and rested her cheek on his pecs.

They lay there joined and entwined, drowsy and content.

“Dear? Destiny, dear?”

Destiny scrambled onto her palms, her eyes wide, shocked and filled with horror. “Mrs. C—it's Mrs. C.”

“Who's Mrs. C?”

“You don't know Mrs. Charles? Cripes.” Hand cupping her mouth, she groaned, “Oh no. It might have been a serial killer, then.”

A serial killer? Mrs. Charles? Whaaat?

Linc heard the clicking of shoes and cursed his carelessness. “Shit. I didn't lock the fucking door. What an asinine thing to do. Destiny, I believe your Mrs. Charles is in the kitchen.”

“Oh. My. God.”

Reluctantly, he lifted her off him and set her on the other side of the bed. He lurched off the mattress and found his slacks. “I'll put on pants and keep her in the kitchen. Take your time and dress, okay? Don't worry. I've got everything under control.”

Eyes narrowing, she threw him a fierce scowl, and he knew fireworks would come later. Destiny's nostrils always did that one, one-two flare prior to an explosion. He'd win this battle; she could claim victory the next skirmish. He had no intention of leaving her place until she was Mrs. Destiny Chapman.

What the hell was she mad about anyway?

Linc made his way into the kitchen and discovered the most startling, diminutive Betty White look-alike humming and using a dustpan and brush to scoop popcorn stuffing into the empty boxes on the table. She wore a flowered dress with a white frill around the hem and faced the open door to the apartment, so she didn't see him enter.

He cleared his throat and took a step forward.

In blithe ignorance of his presence, she continued humming and scooping.

“Mrs. Charles.” He spoke quietly.

“She probably doesn't have her hearing aid in,” Destiny murmured as she walked to his side. “I'll handle this.”

Destiny scooted around until she was diagonal to the elderly woman and tapped her shoulder twice.

Mrs. Charles rose vertically, moving slowly, as if her joints ached. “There you are, dear. I forgot to give you this.” She plucked a legal-size brown envelope from the table and offered it to Destiny. “Your young man asked me to give it to you.”

Destiny frowned but accepted the proffered packet. “Mrs. C, is this the young man who took you to brunch?”

Come here,
she motioned with her hand, and her squinting conveyed a sense of urgency and importance.

He complied with her silent order and draped an arm over her shoulder.

A pair of glasses hung on a string of ornate beads and pearls from the woman's neck. She perched the bifocals on the edge of a powdered nose and craned her neck.

“Mrs. Edna Charles, this is my—”

“I'm Destiny's boyfriend,” Linc declared, hating that he couldn't say “fiancé.” “I'm happy to meet you, Mrs. Charles. I'm Linc Chapman.”

“Oh my.” Mrs. C, as Destiny’d called her, hand clasped to her breast, ring-encrusted fingers twinkling under the ceiling light, peered up at him. “What a deep voice you have, young man. I don't believe we
have
met before. My, my, this is a puzzle.”

The wrinkled skin of her cheeks pinkened. Gnarled fingers curled Destiny's forearm, and Mrs. Charles tugged. “Come away, dear.”

The two women retreated to the hallway, out of Linc's sight, not that it mattered. Mrs. Charles’ murmur reverberated like a stage whisper meant for an audience of five hundred. “I didn't realize you had two young men, dear. I hope I didn't get you into trouble.”

“No, you didn't get me into trouble, Mrs. C.” Destiny spoke slowly and loudly. “And no, I don't have two young men. Linc's the only one.”

“But who was the other, dear?”

“I don't know, but I'm going to find out. Thanks for bringing this over, Mrs. C. I'll walk you back to your apartment.”

“Thank you, dear. I've asked Mr. Ronson to replace those lights in the corridor, but he hasn't gotten around to it.”

Linc hurried into the hallway. “Mind if I come along for the ride, ladies?”

Mrs. Charles tittered and batted lashes coated in layers of mascara. “Of course not, Mr. Chapman.”

“Linc, please, ma'am.” Taking his cue from Destiny, he spoke three tones louder, while curling Mrs. Charles’ hand into the crook of his arm.

“Why, Linc is such an unusual name.” Mrs. Charles tucked a wisp of gray hair into her bun.

“Short for Lincoln, ma'am. My mother named me after our sixteenth president.”

“Here we are, Mrs. C.” Destiny opened an apartment door two down from hers, but on the same side. “We'll wait to hear you turn both locks. Good night.”

“Good night, dear. You too, Linc.” Mrs. C minced her way into her apartment and then gave them a perfect Queen Elizabeth wave before she closed the door.

Thirty seconds later Mrs. Charles’ last bolt clicked into place.

Linc laid his hand on Destiny’s shoulder, and when she glanced back, he put a finger to his lips. Waiting until the sound of shuffling footsteps faded, he tested both locks.

“Is her eyesight as bad as her hearing?”

“Not when she wears her glasses.” Destiny rolled her eyes.

“How old is she?” He placed his hand in the small of Destiny's back and nudged her into motion.

“As if she'd give that away. Mrs. C pretends to be as intelligent as a powder puff, but underneath that blank expression is one smart cookie.”

“She looks like a miniature Betty White.”

She shot him a glance out of the corner of her eyes and grinned. “And she's so much like that ditzy character Betty White played on
The Golden Girls
. And she's vain. Won't wear her glasses because they age her ten years. Won't put in her hearing aid half the time.”

Destiny preceded him into the apartment.

Linc shut the door and turned both locks, then slipped in the dead bolt.

“Are you hungry? I slept right through the meal on the plane. I haven't eaten anything in thirteen hours.”

“Plane? You really did go to Greece?”

“Why don't we order in something, and I'll bring you up to date. Then you can catch me up on the last three weeks.”

She studied him, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. “I'm not feeling very kindly about you at the moment, Lincoln Abraham Chapman. I haven't heard a peep from you in three weeks—not an email, not a voice mail, nothing.”

“That why you gave me that dirty look when Mrs. C showed up?”

“No, it's because I'm mad at myself for not being more mad with you.” She tugged a hand through a raven lock that had tangled at the end. “You show up three weeks after, well,
after
.”

“After you told me you never wanted to see me again,” he reminded her, guessing Nadine's last words were engraved on her brain. “All I ask is that you hear me out. And keep in mind that my feelings for you haven’t changed. I want a ring on your finger and the words ’I do,' tomorrow if possible.”

Shades of crimson flashed from throat to forehead; she puffed out a long breath. “You sure can bust a temper balloon.”

Grinning, he started in her direction.

She put up a hand.

“You sit and bring me up to date while I cook.”

“Got any beer?”