My back hits the wall with a ceremonious thud. Machlan’s body is pressed against mine, pinning me between him and the wall. His mouth covers mine roughly. It’s not a sweet or sensual motion. It’s purely primal. Animalistic. Exactly what I need.
He thrusts his tongue in my mouth and moans as if I’m the best thing he’s tasted in his his entire life. The feeling of his voice vibrating against me with need sets me ablaze.
I dig at the button of his jeans as he brings his lips to mine again. Somehow, I get them unfastened in my haste.
His mouth is hot, his breath sweet, as he sweeps his tongue inside my mouth again. I shove his pants over his hips and grip his cock in my hand. It’s thick and stretches from the tips of my fingers up the bottom of my forearm. It’s heavy in my hand and the head sticky from a drip of pre-cum. Wetness coats the inside of my thighs as I hold him with both hands.
“You’ve done it now,” he says, ending the sentence with one final kiss.
“If only you’d do it now.”
He pierces me with a look that’s feral. “Oh, love. I’m gonna do it.”
Shorts drop. Flip-flops off. I’ve never undressed faster in my whole damn life. The faster I move, the harder my heart beats, and the more I want him to touch me.
He hooks an arm around my left leg, hoisting it up to his hip.
“Oh, shit,” I gasp. My insides melt at the way he grips me as though I’m his, the way his fingers sear into the sensitive flesh on the insides of my thighs.
My urgency is reflected in his eyes. I drag in a jagged breath as he positions himself at my opening.
“Do I need a condom?” he asks.
“No. I have an IUD—holy shit!” I cry.
He fills me so quickly I’m forced into the wall. The picture of Linton from the 1800s rattles on the little nail where it’s hung for decades.
My eyes roll closed as I stretch around him. His hands cup my ass, and he lifts me. My other leg curls around his hip. When I open my eyes and look into his, I think he’s going to come undone.
His teeth are gritted together, a bead of sweat dotting his forehead. “Damn it,” he groans, his tone full of grit and gravel.
He slips out and pushes right back inside me, hitting every nerve ending in my body from this angle. My hips push against him, craving the contact. He squeezes my behind, digging his fingers into my flesh before he strokes inside my body long and hard.
“Oh, God,” I mutter. The two syllables take more than two syllables to get out as my body begins to convulse. My teeth almost chatter at the intensity of the moment.
My shoulders dig into the paneling as my lower half wraps around this delicious man. The sound of our bodies sliding against one another producing an erotic layer over the rock music from the bar below. I can’t take it. I’ve needed this for far too long. I’ve needed him for far too long.
“Harder!” I shout, the words coming out through my clenched teeth. “Please. Harder.”
“Like this?” He hammers into me with no caution or concern, no tenderness like I’ve experienced with him before. There’s nothing personal about this—this is fucking.
“Ahhh …” My voice gets louder as the beat of the song below increases and as the drum hits, so does my orgasm. “Fuck!”
As I grip his shoulders, my body explodes around him. The walls of my vagina pulse with each ripple of sensation he delivers. He brings me higher and higher until I think I’m going to rip in two.
“Machlan!” I scream.
The wall bites into my skin and my nails dig into his as he grips my hips and presses me down hard. Through the aftershocks of my own orgasm, I can feel him releasing into my body, filling me with his own pleasure.
His head falls back, a low hum emanating from his throat. Sweat trickles down the side of his face, glistening over his skin.
Panting, finding it impossible to get enough air in my lungs to steady myself, I watch him come back to Earth. His eyes are almost bloodshot. His hat gone. His shoulders red from the marks of my fingernails.
“How organic was that?” he asks.
He’s trying to play it cool, referring to our earlier conversations, but something’s amiss in the way he says it. It’s not cocky or even neutral. It’s … careful. And that makes my stomach drop.
I shrug in an attempt to seem as nonchalant as I can. “That’s one way to put it.”
He sets me back on my feet. My legs shake, threatening to give out, so I lean against the wall.
“This is gonna make me an asshole,” he says, “but I gotta get back down there.”
He keeps his head down, his voice as gruff as I’ve ever heard it. He busies himself with getting put back together. It doesn’t go without notice that he keeps his distance.
My nakedness suddenly feels wrong. I scoop up my clothes, avoiding eye contact. “No. No, go ahead. I get it. Completely.”
His zipper breaks the silence before he rummages around, finding his hat behind the chair. “You’re okay, right?”
My throat tightens. I search his face for some hint as to what he’s feeling but find nothing. Just a guard in place that I’ve seen too many times to count.
I’ve never been stung in the chest by a wasp, but this is what I think that would feel like. A quick stab. A slow roll of poison. A burn you can’t shake for a while.
“Of course, I’m fine,” I say, plastering on a smile. “That was letting things be organic. I don’t expect anything from you.” And now the natural thing is for you to leave.
If I’m not mistaken, something washes over his eyes. It’s another bee sting in the center of my chest. Lucky for me, the first one stings too bad to really feel this one.
“Just make sure you lock this,” he says. He takes his hat off, watching me as he runs his hands through his hair, and then puts it back on again. Only now does he start toward the door.
And just like that, he’s gone.
Twenty-Two
Machlan
“I think that does it,” Navie says. She zips up the money bag and tosses it on the counter. “Everything is squared away.”
“You did good tonight.”
“Thanks.” She looks quite pleased with herself as she leans against the bar. “How good did you do tonight?”
That’s all it takes for my mind to be pulled right back to Hadley. One stupid little sentence that might not even be about her—that probably isn’t—and I’m lost to everything else.
I looked over my shoulder all night. I don’t know what I wanted more—have her in walk in the bar and spar with me or walk my ass back upstairs and finish what I started. Or re-start what I finished. Either way, it ends with me getting fucked. She’s probably directly above me, just feet away, yet it feels like she’s on the other side of the world.
I’d ask myself what I was thinking, but I already know. I wasn’t. Not with the head I should’ve been.
“It was that good, huh?” Navie asks.
Putting the last clean glass back on the shelf, I look at Navie through the mirror. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, okay.” She’s laughing when I turn around. “Look, I know I just started here, and we’re not friends or anything. And you totally don’t have to tell me anything …”
“But?”
“But I want to know.” She pouts. “I see the way she looks at you like you’re the best thing since yoga pants. And you look at her like you want to eat her.”
I pretend to consider this. “Fair enough.”
She laughs again. “See? You don’t even dispute it!”
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a busybody?”
“Lots of dumb, stupid people.” She raises her brows. “I saw you chase her out of here.”
It’s like she wants me to deny it. I can’t. I don’t have the fucks to give to lie.
I chased her.
By all accounts, I fucked her.
But if it was only fucking, then why do I want to run back up there?
God help me.
I rough a hand down my face. “I pay you to keep the customers’ tabs, not keep tabs on me.”
“Well played, boss. Well played.” Pulling a gray sweatshirt over her head, she then hops on a stool and gets comfortable.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” A few moments go by before she gets it. “Oh, like I’m expecting you to talk to me?”
“Yeah.”
“Because I’m expecting you to talk to me.”
“I’m not the talking type, Navie.”
Liquor bottles are right behind me. I back up to them. A quick shot might dull some of the insanity in my brain, but it’s against my own rules. I never drink at work.
A shot glass magically appears in my hand. Whiskey jumps from the shelf and splashes into it, and I down it without a second thought.
Navie watches with an unbridled curiosity. “That’s probably why you aren’t actively screwing Hadley. You won’t talk.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Explain it to me another way then,” she challenges. “Or don’t because communication issues seem to be your thing.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“And I don’t really want answers unless you feel compelled to give them. In that case, I’ll totally listen. But,” she says, wagging a finger through the air, “I do want you to think about it.”
The shot slams down my throat. It burns as it rolls, splashing into the acid already pooled in my stomach. One measly shot isn’t going to do shit; I’d need the whole damn bottle to make a dent in this night.
The whiskey mutes just enough to pull my defenses down and bring her reaction front and center—the one I’ve fought since I walked out of there. It’s a look I’ll never love. It’s a look that, every time I put it there, I swear I won’t do it again.