Page 36 of Sweet (Chicago Underground 7)
“I told you. I couldn’t risk keeping you with me until we’d handled it. And besides, I owed Philip a two-weeks’ notice.”
“You quit?”
“It was time. There’s only so long you can run on the tracks before you get hit.”
“Not funny.”
“Wasn’t trying to be. I’m serious.”
I narrowed my eyes. My consummate workaholic had quit? “So what are you going to do now? Move to Florida? Play canasta?”
He laughed. “I’m sure there’s something legal a lawyer can do these days.”
My brow lifted. “Sure, but you don’t do boring.”
“I’ve already talked to someone at the Chicago Innocence Project. I joined with Philip because I wanted to fight for the underdog. But Philip hasn’t been that for a long time.”
“And the money,” I reminded him. “Three times your salary.”
“Which I’ve mostly saved. So I can live on a pittance for a while, maybe try to earn back some of the karma I’ve lost over the years. Why, would you be uncomfortable earning more than me? I could always go back to a firm. They’d eat up my defense experience.”
“Oh, it sounds good to me.” More than good. Perfect. I grinned at him. “I’ll be the breadwinner. You’ll be my kept man.”
“So…I’ll have dinner on the table and wear something pretty.”
“I like what you wear,” I said, nodding toward his suit. “Though I like it better off.”
He casually plucked at the buttons of his dress shirt, peeling the silk from his chest, revealing a mat of hair and a stretch of unsmooth skin and an angry raised scar that ran from his collarbone down to the bottom of his ribs. My breath caught at the sight.
“That’s not the worst,” he said in a conversational tone. “I’ve had flaws before, but these are…well, ugly.”
“You’re only saying that because you haven’t gotten a good look at my feet yet. Dancing is not a friend of the body.”
Apparently unafraid, he knelt in front of me and reached under me. He pulled my legs over the side of the bed. Fingertips and an eager gaze trailed down perpetually swollen knees and thickly roped calves and bent, misshapen feet.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Strong.”
I touched lightly the puckered scar on his chest. “Strong,” I whispered. Beautiful, so beautiful. Alive.
No more pain, he’d said. No more waiting either. I tugged him over me, shedding my leotard and the rest of my clothes like skin of old, wearing instead the salty sweat of my labor, the scent of my lust. We continued upward in our steady fashion, finding surcease in the climb. His mouth quested lower on my body, over my belly button, and across the crease of my leg. He delved lower and deeper, into the private-secret places I opened to him, meeting my pulse with his tongue and splitting my body with heat.
“Drew,” I moaned.
He shuddered, his whole body curling around itself as his hand went to his cock. “Again. Say that again.”
I could have repeated his name in an endless litany, a euphoric prayer, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted me helpless and frantic. Brought low by my need for a few helpless moments…before he lifted me back up again. Unbalanced and then righted again. Taken away only to fill me back up.
With a renewed sense of submission, I let the currents of his mouth drag me down, submerged in pleasure. Soft cries sounded muted to my own ears, as if I were underwater, as if I were drowning.
He flicked at my clit, and it pulled a moan from me. “Drew, Drew.”
Exactly what he’d wanted and authentic too. Like he’d bypassed my walls and reached deep inside me. Like plucking the private strings beneath the hood of a grand piano and playing secret music only meant for us.
I shuddered through the stroke of his tongue and rode his fingers to a rolling, blinding climax. His fingers tore open the condom packet with rough movements, and I stilled him, taking the condom from him and pressing the tip to his cock. He jerked at the light pressure but let me continue.
I took my time rolling the latex over his velvet-smooth firmness, feeling out each ridge and curve before hiding it from view. When he was covered, I cupped the taut skin behind, enjoying the tremors that followed each probing curl of my finger.
I understood now what he meant: to explore each other’s bodies and all the ways we fit. It wasn’t about fulfilling a need. It was want, pure and lawless, which made it that much sweeter. I wanted to search out every point of pleasure, soothe each rough-edged pain.
