Page 78 of Justice

He raised an eyebrow at me, something almost playful trying to surface through all that heaviness.

“Justice. Turn around.”

He turned, and I got my hands on his shoulders, and the second my palms met all that tight muscle under his shirt, I felt exactly how much the last two days had cost him. He was carrying it in his neck, in the base of his skull—all the strain of spending last night in a cell and a lifetime of trying to keep everybody else standing upright, knotted tight beneath my fingers.

“Damn,” he said low, when I pressed into a knot at the base of his neck. “Where’d you learn to do that.”

“I can’t tell you my secrets,” I smiled.

“I’ll pull them out of you,” he responded.

I worked my thumbs slow down either side of his spine, into the meat of his shoulders, and felt him start to give under it, breath going longer, head dropping forward just slightly to give me better access. His skin was warm through the thin cotton, and somewhere in the middle of it my own hands stopped feeling like hands doing a job and started feeling like hands that wanted to be doing exactly this and nothing else in the world.

He reached up and caught my wrist, stilled it there against his shoulder.

“Skye.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m real glad you’re here.”

Five words, and they went through me like fire. I was glad I was here too. Not just for the money. I was glad to be with him.

I should’ve stepped back then. I knew it even as I didn’t do it. I knew every single thing that man believed about me was a lie. And every time I let this go one step further I was making it that much harder to walk away when the day came. And the day was coming. Maybe in weeks, maybe less now. I was running out of time.

I leaned down instead and put my mouth against the side of his neck.

He turned on that stool fast, caught me by the waist, and pulled me down into his lap like my thick juiciness weighed nothing at all. His mouth found mine before I could say another word, and whatever I’d meant to say dissolved right out of me the second his tongue slid against mine, slow and certain, one hand splayed wide across my lower back holding me exactly where he wanted me.

“Upstairs,” I breathed against his mouth.

“Now,” he said, standing with me still wrapped around him like I belonged there, and carried me through the dark house that way, my legs locked around his waist, his hands under me holding my full weight without a single stumble, like I was nothing to him, like I was everything.

He set me down inside his room and locked the door behind us without breaking stride, and by the time I turned around he already had that white tee up over his head, all that dark skin and muscle catching the low light from the lamp on his nightstand. My mouth went dry looking at him. I’d seen him plenty of times by now, but tonight, with the danger sitting under both our skins, it felt like the first time all over again.

“Come here,” he said, and it wasn’t a request.

I crossed to him and he had my dress up over my head before I finished closing the distance, unhooked my bra with one hand like he’d been doing it his whole life, and then his mouth was on my collarbone, right along the edge of that scar I still flinched to have touched, except tonight I didn’t flinch. Tonight his lips moved slow and deliberate along it like he was trying to kiss the hurt right out of my skin, like he could taste the years of shame still clinging to it.

And that should have stopped me cold. That scar was the one map to me nobody was ever supposed to read. Five years I’d kept it covered, kept it in the dark where questions couldn’t reach it. It was proof somebody had wanted me dead, and I’d spent all that time making sure not one living person got close enough to ask about it. He didn’t ask. He just put his mouth to it like it was worth being gentle with, and some locked-down thing in my heart cracked clean open. For one terrifying second I wanted to tell him everything. My name. My babies. Every true thing I’d buried to stay alive.

I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. But God, I wanted to more than I’d wanted anything in five years.

His hands slid down my sides, thumbs grazing the soft swell of my hips before he hooked his fingers into the waistband of my panties and pulled them down slow, letting them pool at my feet.

“Step out,” he murmured, voice rough, and I did, kicking them aside as his hands came back to my thighs, spreading me open just enough to feel the heat of his breath against my skin. His mouth moved lower, teeth grazing the inside of my thigh, and I gasped, my fingers running through his hair as he teased me, his tongue flicking out just enough to make my knees weak.

“Justice—” His name came out on a whimper, but he ignored it, his hands gripping my ass to keep me steady as he finally closed the distance, his tongue dragging slow and deliberate through my slick heat. My head fell back, a moan tearing from my throat as he worked me, his lips and tongue doing things that made my legs shake. He wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t slow. He was taking what he wanted, and I was more than willing to give it to him.

His fingers dug into my skin, pulling me closer, and I could feel the vibration of his groan against me, the sound sending a jolt straight to my core. He pulled back just enough to look up at me, his lips glistening, his eyes dark with hunger.

“You taste like sin,” he growled, and before I could respond, he stood, lifting me effortlessly and tossing me onto the bed. I bounced once, my breath hitching as he loomed over me, his hands already working the waistband of his sweats down. His dick sprang free, thick and heavy, and I bit my lip at the sight of it, already imagining how it would feel inside me.

He didn’t make me wait. He climbed onto the bed, settling between my thighs, his hands gripping my hips as he lined himself up. The first push was slow, deliberate, stretching me open inch by inch until I was full of him, my body trembling with the effort of taking all of him. He groaned, his forehead pressing against mine as he bottomed out, his hips flush against mine.

“Fuck, Skye,” he breathed, his voice strained. “You feel like heaven.”

I couldn’t respond. I could only whimper as he started to move, his hips rolling in deep, steady thrusts that had me seeing stars. His hands were everywhere. They were gripping my thighs, my ass and my waist, like he couldn’t decide where he wanted to touch me most. His mouth found mine again, his tongue tangling with mine as he fucked me, his pace relentless, his body demanding everything I had to give.