Nevermore Bookstore: Chapter 9

Look away.

Fox repeated the order to himself for the eleventy-ninth time as he dragged his binoculars away from Cady and back to the first floor. Willing his racing heart to slow, he surveyed the visible perimeter, finding nothing at either entrance or window, and checked Nevermore’s balconies, on which he’d installed motion detector lights.

Quiet. Dark. Good.

He snapped his sights back to her window before giving the action any conscious thought.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Cady getting ready for bed had to be sexier than actual porn. Even the good stuff.

Look away. It doesn’t matter what she said about voyeurism being hot. Look away.

Despite the ice-needle rain barely held at bay by the quick shelter he’d built from driftwood and a camo tarp, he was suddenly sweltering enough for his blood to catch fire.

She’d danced out of the bathroom with her earbuds in, wearing nothing but a barely there tank and some boy-briefs, attempting to wrestle a brush through her chaotic hair with one hand.

The feverish rushing in his veins had heated him at first. But now it headed to his dick, and before long, he’d lose feeling in his bloodless fingers and toes.

You can protect her without peeping on her, dipshit. His conscience biffed him upside the head.

She could also not prance around in front of the third-floor window with her heavy, unbound tits threatening to bounce out of her tiny tank.

It was damn obvious she was cold. And that her nipples were small compared to her breasts. They were probably pink.

Slamming the door on that thought, he scowled. She should put on a sweater.

Or a long, fluffy robe.

A nun’s robes.

Nope. Sexy, dammit.

A HAZMAT suit might do it. Like those yellow ones they wore back in pandemic early days. That might be enough coverage to put his pecker back to sleep.

Except just then, she turned away from the window.

Every one of his muscles jerked as he ripped the binoculars away, emitting a pathetic sound somewhere between a groan and a whimper.

Didn’t matter if he stabbed himself right in the cornea—the sight of her pale, plump ass playing peekaboo with the edge of her cheeky shorts would be the one image he clung to until the bullet out there with his name on it found its forever home.

Hell, the sight was tattooed on the back of his eyelids now.

Attempting a peek, he immediately slammed them shut again, as he’d caught her bending over a drawer.

Without the binoculars, he hadn’t seen anything. Not really. Not the outlines of her sex against the thin cotton. Not the generous backside exposed to the entire fucking world.

But he could, though. His fingers itched to bring the binoculars back to the bridge of his nose.

He didn’t.

He wanted to.

She liked it. If what she claimed at Book Club was to be believed.

Still, he didn’t. If this sort of self-control didn’t win him back a few points from the devil, he’d fight the fucker for his throne.

Swallowing from his water bottle did little to cure a mouth gone terminally dry. Jesus Christ, he needed to put a stop to this. Someone could be coming up the stone steps from Downtown to Uptown anytime and get an eyeful of his Cady.

Wait. Of Cady. Not his. She was her own woman.

Never his.

Don’t be overprotective. His inner voice dripped with disgust. The median age in this town is fifty. Who’s trying to climb these stairs at midnight on a fall Thursday?

Putting the phone up to his ear, he listened to the peal on his end, then watched her react in real time.

She shuffled toward the charging station with her electronics and checked the number on the phone.

He ached to see her face.

Not that the view wasn’t incredible from this end.

Still, how often had he dreamed about this very thing? Months. Since the first time he’d heard her voice on the other end of the line. A singular sound that brought his body…his soul back from the very nearly literal dead.

Fox’s heart plummeted when she returned the phone to the charging station.

Closing his eyes, he shrank into the dank ground threatening to soak even his water-resistant bedroll.

She wasn’t going to take his—

“I was worried you wouldn’t call.”

Peeling his lids open, he drank in the sight of her adjusting her earbuds with a smile so wide he couldn’t just hear it in her voice. He could see it. He could watch it illuminate the vicious cold and threaten to summon warmth.

He could feel it.

The timbre of a woman so genuine, of vibrations of pure pleasure emitted by her lovely throat. He tried to consider how far those sounds traveled into the cosmos only to bounce from a satellite to land just when his heart threatened to forget what warmth felt like.

“Fox? You there?”

Shit. “Yeah. Sorry. Lag in the connection.”

It was nice not to have to carefully modulate each word, to relax his voice enough to allow his throat a much-needed break.

“It’s okay.” Across the way, she grunted, panted, and strained. If Fox couldn’t see that she was struggling into a pair of pajama bottoms with disembodied coffee mugs on them, he’d have assumed he’d interrupted great sex.

Still, using some sort of one-handed woman magic and way too much wriggling and bouncing for his physical comfort, she succeeded before collapsing on the edge of her bed with a burst of relief.

“You…okay over there?” he asked, pretending ignorance.

“Oh. Ha. Sorry. I was just wresting with my… Erm.” She looked down at her lap, hand going to her belly where it stretched the waistband of her pants. “With my conscience. Guess what? I won.” Snickering at her own misdirection, she began an awkward, adorable three-legged crab walk back to her pillow before collapsing like a starfish-sans-left-arm in the middle of the bed.

From his vantage point, he had to look up her body to see her face, starting at the soles of her feet where the bottom of her socks demanded, BRING. WINE.

Wow, her evening fashion sure was passionate about beverages.

“How is your shoulder?” he asked, frowning when she winced and adjusted the strap.

“Hurts,” she grumbled. “But what’s new? How’s the…” Her foot bounced like a metronome for a moment as she searched for a word. “How’s the job?”

Fucking killing him right now.

“Good. Taking longer than expected.”

“You don’t sound upset about that.”

“I’m not.”

An odd silence, pregnant with all the things said and unsaid between them, seemed to even blanket the storm with its oppression.

He should say something.

“Fox?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you do?” Her foot was bouncing again. Back and forth. Back and forth.

A pendulum.

And he was the pit.

“I work in…deliverables.”

“What kind of deliverables?”

“The kind people get paid to protect. Usually human.”

“Is that what you are? Usually human?”

He snorted. “Less than that. More like barely human.”

He was an animal. A beast. For watching her like this. For lying to her. For the things he wanted to do to her.

And what he wished she’d do to him.

“You’re quiet tonight,” she said. “You remind me of Bob right now.”

Fucking shit snacks. “Bob?” He very, very distinctly did not say that like Bob would have.

“Yeah, he’s this… Well, he’s a…”

Forcing himself to breathe, he wondered if anyone ever actually died from anticipation.

And he’d spent thirteen straight hours on a sniper hill, for the sake of all fucks.

“He’s the…handyman I hired to fix my roof.” Her voice stiffened, along with the rest of her. She was feeling defensive. About Bob.

Interesting.

“I’m trying to decide if you’re complimenting me or insulting me,” he teased. “How do you feel about this Bob, who, I’m hoping from the name, is some beer-bellied contractor who plays Santa for his grandkids?”

Her laugh didn’t break the tension, but it certainly made it more flexible. “Bob? Oh, he’s… Well. He’s like… I mean—most of the time he’s just…” She cleared her throat. “I’m not exactly sure how to describe Bob. He can do just about anything, I think. But people don’t see that about him. He’s terse but really patient. Kind but damaged. Probably the best employee I’ve ever had.”

Fox had to swallow twice before replying. “And…how are we alike?”

Another laugh shimmered in the moist air between them. “Well, mostly it’s that I’ve had just about enough of awkward silences from you both,” she chastised him with a wry grin. “But you’re better now.”

He basked in the sparkle of warmth between them. “I started that book you—”

“So about these deliverables,” she interrupted in the way of polite people who are embarrassed to interrupt. “Do you protect them for, like…private entities such as drug cartels? Or like the government? Oh my God, or are you Taylor Swift’s bodyguard?”

“Think about as far from the glamor of Taylor Swift as you can get.” He eyed a leak forming in his shelter.

“So…government, then.”

“Yup.”

“Just because I’ve heard people are listening over the phone, let’s be clear…our government, right?”

That elicited a chuckle from him. “Yes. Rest assured, I’m not a spy or a terrorist.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that’s what a spy or a terrorist would say.”

“What would it take to convince you?”

“A last name would be a great start.” Levity still hung between them, but the laughter had disappeared.

With a big sigh, he said, “I could tell you, but…”

“Rude.”

“Ask me anything else, Cady. I’ll answer.”

She paused, then sat up a bit, propping herself on a pillow. She didn’t look victorious, but, rather, troubled. As if she’d not expected him to relent. “I don’t know… Um, if you had been voted most likely to do anything in high school, what would it be?”

A hand went to smack her forehead as if by memory of repetition.

“I was, actually,” he answered honestly.

“Shut up.” Her jaw dropped open.

“Most likely to succeed.”

“Of course.” She snorted. “Of course you were popular. Bet you were homecoming king too, huh?”

Prom king. Didn’t matter. “I was…different then.”

She cocked her head. “Different how?”

The woman was trying to get to know him, and to allow it would be… Well, it’d be cruel in the end. “In all the ways that matter,” he finished lamely. “What about you? Voted most likely to…?”

Her laugh was an astonished bark. “Are you kidding? People know better than to vote for me! But I’d say it would have been most likely to choke on Lucky Charms in bed…which I did. Twenty minutes ago.”

“You’re in bed?” Damn, he hadn’t meant it to sound like he’d been waiting for her to admit it.

“I am.”

“Did I call too late?” Usually they spoke all hours, but she was still on pills for her injury and had had somewhat of a shit week. “Should I go?”

“No. Don’t go. I haven’t slept lately, and I’m glad I have you to chat with instead of listening to all the voices in my head until I’m driven toward multiple snacks. The later the time gets, the more the future gets very dark…very specific.” She laughed, but this time it was her nervous laugh. An audible LOL to lighten the mood and fill space.

“Are you okay, Cady?” he asked.

“Probably? I’m having a break, but whether it’s a through or a down is yet to be decided. But I ended things…well, with this guy I went on a couple of dates with. His mother is sort of a big name in local happenings. Founding town family and all that clichéd shit. She could make my life difficult.”

“Yeah? Why do you think she’ll be upset?”

“I don’t know.” She let out a frustrated sigh and flopped a bit. “The same reason she goes south of the border and sucks the blood of little children. She gets off on terrifying local villagers.”

Damn her for making him laugh.

“Why break it off?” he asked before he could think better of it. “Is he the kind of guy that would put truck nuts on his Toyota Corolla?”

Or…did it have something to do with the fact that, even at this moment, she might be feeling the need to change her panties?

The thought of the panty stash in her desk made him bite into his knuckles.

“No. He’s a great guy. The best, really. It’s just… I saw a glimpse of our future, and trust me, it ended in a bitter divorce.”

Good. Then he wouldn’t have to divorce old Ethan’s head from his body.

“His mom’s a real chupacabra, then?”

“The worst. I keep trying to run her out of our Bare-Naked Book Club, but she keeps insisting on showing up and then spending the entire time shitting all over the books. I keep pushing the genre into deeper and deeper kinks in hopes she’ll just give up altogether.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “I’ve tried the bondage, the reverse harem, the bullies, the spanking, every paranormal creature you can think of and then some. Tonight we discussed the pros and cons of barbed blue alien dick…and do you think this woman left? No! She hated it. I could tell. But I think she’s a secret freak.”

“Blue alien dick…is that what women are into these days? With the barbs and whatnot? If so, I’m in trouble. I mean…it can get a bit purple when it’s been too long or something, but no barbs.”

She gave a shy giggle, lifting her finger to twirl in her hair. “Do you have a kink, Mr. Fox?”

Yeah. You.

“I-I don’t know…maybe. You ever read Fifty Shades or anything like that?”

“Couldn’t own a bookstore and not read it.”

“What did you think?” Jesus, he was on thin ice here…

“I mean, it was sexy, but not a fantasy of mine.”

“You don’t like to be tied up?” This felt like something he already knew without asking.

“I think I’m just too boring for that kind of thing.”

“I hear you. I’m about all different flavors of sex, but that’s not one of them for me, either.” If he couldn’t stand four walls, handcuffs would make him lose the few marbles he had left.

Her giggle lifted in pitch with her shyness. “Am I mistaken when I say sex only has one flavor? I guess more if you have the flavored condoms.”

“You don’t know how wrong you are,” he said. His body, having relaxed to half-mast, was now hard as a diamond again. “There are all sorts of flavors,” he mused, wrapping his fingers into a fist so they didn’t go where they ought not to. “Soft and sweet. Salty and sweaty. Hard and…” Fucking Christ, you masochistic shitsack, shut your mouth.

“Jiggly?” she finished.

He almost managed a laugh.

She sobered. “You’ve…been with a lot of women, I suppose.”

“Not really.” He lifted the binoculars to his eyes. “I married young.”

“Oh?” He watched a shifting-eye argument she had with herself while she chewed off half the inside of her cheek. “What happened?” She clapped her hand over her mouth as if she’d not meant to ask.

“I promised her the world. What she got was me.” A familiar pang alarmed him. Not because of its presence. But because of how muted it’d become.

Jenny had moved on before he came to the PNW. He was just a bad memory to her now. Some short-lived mistake in her past. They were too young to have married, both eager to see the world and be adults.

She wasn’t prepared for the soldier who returned home. No one could be.

“It’s in the past. All for the good.”

“So…we’re both…free?”

“I’m single. But not necessarily free…” He was a prisoner of his own mind and would never be free to give her the life she deserved.

He’d tried for Jenny. He’d done everything he could. The boner-killing, mind-numbing meds. The endless therapy. The—

“Still more than me, probably.”

“What?” As per usual, she pulled him back from a dark place.

“Women you’ve had sex with,” she said in a stage whisper.

“I mean…how many women have you had sex with? I’ll tell you if my number is higher.” Fox allowed the heat of the conversation to rekindle the cold places he’d exposed.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” She threw a pillow at the wall, and it absolutely would have been him if he’d been standing there to catch it.

He ached to be.

“You want my sex partner count?” he teased.

She pressed her lips together. “Um…is it more than you can count on both hands?” she asked.

“It is.”

“Then no. Is it fifty? Wait, don’t tell me. It’s not over a hundred, is it? I don’t want to know. It probably is—you sound insanely hot.”

Shifting uncomfortably, he scratched at his mostly wet hair. “I’m—”

“It’s not that I care,” she rushed out. “I’m just…jealous, I guess.”

“Jealous?”

“Of women who got to”—she slapped a hand over her mouth—“meet you,” she finished, the words garbled through her fingers.

He didn’t know what to say to that, and the silence stretched out for a beat too long, like a decision had already been made, but neither of them wanted to admit it.

“Is the reason really your job?” she asked. “Why we can’t meet, I mean?”

“Yes.”

“When will you be done?”

Never. “I can’t say.”

She did a little silent tantrum on her bed that would have been so cute if he’d not been the cause of it. “You keep calling. We keep…connecting. Flirting. And after last time I just thought—I don’t know. If you really can’t meet, I understand, but I just need to know. Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Do you…even want to meet me?”

“It’s because I want to so much that makes it so dangerous,” he blurted.

“But why would it be dangerous?” she asked. “Who are you, Jason Bourne? I mean, come on.” She flailed her one good arm.

Not even close.

“Cady, if I ever meet you, I will have a hard time stopping myself from fucking you on the first hard surface I can find.”

Choking on a gasp, she sat all the way up and clutched her heart as if it might give out. “You would?”

He didn’t relent. If she could drive away Caryn with alien dick, then he could show her a bit of shock and awe. Give her a glimpse of his dark desires where she was concerned.

“Woman, I’d do things you haven’t thought of yet.”

As he spoke, she lifted her fingertips to her mouth, lightly tracing the full seam before charting a course down the gentle column of her neck. She let an idle touch drift over the swell of her breast before meeting the line of her tank.

Fox fell silent, his entire body thrumming with unspent need.

“I’d like that,” she said in that small voice she had when the truth made her shy and bold at the same time.

Her finger dipped beneath the thin fabric, edging toward her nipple.

Fox could almost feel the especially creamy delicacy of the thinner skin of her breasts, the tighter gather of her areola, the puckered nipple waiting to be stroked.

“Do it,” he ordered her in a harsh rasp.

She froze. “What?”

“You want to touch yourself, don’t you?”

“Um…” She glanced at the hand paralyzed in exploration.

“The truth,” he demanded darkly. “You can’t hide from me, Cady. I see you.”

“I wish you could.” Her breathy confession nearly did him in. “I wish you would order me around so I knew what you liked. I wish I could see you, too…”

“I’ll tell you what I like.” He should be gentler. Coaxing and tender. She’d had a tough day…they both had. But his frustration made his voice as hard as his dick.

A tension in her features pulled him in—a pinch of need mixed with uncertainty that broke his heart and inflamed his body at the same time.

“I’ll tell you what I’d like, woman. If you do what I say.”

Her body went limp as she indulged in a silent freakout. “Okay…probably.”

“I’d like to make you come.”

That did it.

Cady bit her lip and squeezed her eyes so tightly shut, the creases turned white. Were they going to do this? He fucking hoped so. It was the only way he could ever allow himself to make love to her.

By making her love herself.

“Okay…” she breathed. “Tell me what to do. What you like.”

He was glad she couldn’t see how many teeth his smile exposed. He must look like a wolf about to dine.

“I like soft women.” He did nothing to keep the gravel from his voice now. “Are you soft, Cady?”

“Too soft.” Her moan was half lament.

“No such thing,” he growled. “Talk like that will get you punished.”

Fox wasn’t close enough to see the flash of interest in her eyes, but he did hear her sudden intake of breath. “I’ll be good.”

“Not when I’m done with you.”

He knew she’d not meant to whimper by how fast she choked it off.

“What would your tits feel like in my hands, Cady? Cup them. Stroke them. Do they want attention tonight?”

Her chin lifted, and a hint of bewilderment and wonder broke through her gathering mask of arousal. It almost seemed like he’d pleased her in a way that had nothing to do with sex.

With a deep breath, she slid her fingers around the orb of her breast and lifted, caressing it with her thumbs, testing the tight peak with an audible gasp.

“Tell me, Cady.”

“It’s, um… They’re…heavy. And…not firm.”

A smile stole across his lips again, this one filled with infinite tenderness beneath the pulsing need. “Soft. Just like I need them… Go lower.”

She cleared her throat and tugged her hair in mortification, but finally said, “Okay,” and angled south, toying with the waistband of her sleep pants.

“Your ribs,” he said. “Your stomach. Caress a path down to your hips, but take your time. Make sure every part of your skin knows where you’re headed and will be alive when you finally get where I’m taking you.”

To her credit, she followed his commands, fingers drifting down a long torso with dramatic curves. “You can’t see my ribs,” she warned him. “I don’t have abs.”

“Remember what I said about soft,” he murmured. She was everything he wanted. Someone not hardened by the hatred in this world. Not toned by toughness. Nor shaped by an industry that hated the curves women were supposed to have. Not just tits and ass, but shoulders, arms, tummy, and legs.

A woman was everything. Everything. Everything. The smallest could be the strongest. The largest could be the most sensitive. The gentlest heart could have the toughest walls built high around it.

Cady was beautiful because of her softness, in all the ways.

“I like to find something to hold on to when I reach for a woman,” he said honestly. “Now open your legs.”

She squeaked a little, but her knees drew up and fell apart.

Holy fucking Christ, he’d never hated the sight of a coffee cup more in his entire life than the one on the seam of her sleep pants over the promised land. He’d suggest she get naked if he wouldn’t feel like a shitheel for making her struggle with an injury.

Besides. The way his heart was beating in his chest, it would explode if he could see everything. And, damned as he may be, as permissive as her language was…there were lines he shouldn’t cross.

“Touch your pussy for me,” he growled.

“Oh. Um. Okay.” Her voice hitched as her elbow straightened and long, manicured fingers disappeared beneath the drawstring and found her core. Her gasp was an echo of discovery.

“Tell me what you feel.”

Her breath hitched and she squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m wet,” she admitted tightly.

In the sling, her hand squeezed into a fist, as if it wanted to help hide her face and couldn’t.

“I want you drenched, Cady. Listen to me.” His voice became as hard as his cock. “Don’t touch your clit. Go lower for me. Go deeper. Find where my cock would spread you open and dip your fingers inside.”

“I-I’m… I-I’ve never like…without a toy or something.” Her voice was tight. Tormented.

Tantalized.

“Get your fingers slick, honey. Just do what I say.”

A soft sound, this time with more interest than agony. She’d brought her knees up further, rolled her hips forward. The way she would for a deep, deep dicking.

If he passed out, no one would blame him.

“What do you feel, Cady? Smooth silk?”

“No,” she said with a soft sense of wonder. “It’s…ridged. Pliant.”

God love a woman who was a reader during naughty talk. Was there anything sexier?

“My fucking favorite,” he growled. “Now take your slick fingers and softly stroke your clit for me.”

“Dear God.” The mortification had trickled back into her voice.

“No, Cady. No God in this place. Just me. And you. And the slippery folds of sex beneath your fingers.”

She’d forgotten to say anything back, to give him affirmations or even acknowledgements. Lost in a sea of emotion that changed with each rolling wave, he watched her hand beneath the layers set a rhythm that planted her head far back in her pillow.

“That’s it. Yes, baby. Stroke it for me.” She did, her rhythm increasing along with her hitches of breath. “Would you like my mouth on it?”

“Yes,” she panted.

“How?”

Her speed increased once more, and her hips lifted and squirmed.

Moisture flooded in at the suggestion, and though Fox had known hunger in his lifetime, nothing had even come close to this throbbing, pulsating, possessive, yawning emptiness.

A lifetime of this could never see him sated.

“Kiss it,” she said.

“Soft brushes? Or…”

“Hard.” She groaned. “Like you can’t help yourself.”

“I’m going to fucking devour you, Cadence Bloomquist.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to wrench your legs open and crush my mouth over your clit, and you will get a savage tongue-lashing. I will be ruthless. Relentless. You will beg for mercy, and none will be given.”

“Fox,” she sobbed. “You can’t say that. You— I can’t—”

“If I was between your legs, woman, you’d never see them closed again. I’d dine like a man granted his last meal, drink your desire, and start an entire new course until you could physically take no more.”

“Oh.” It wasn’t a word but a plea. “Fox. I…”

“You’re close, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Come for me, Cady.” He’d meant to order her, but it escaped as a supplication. “Let me hear you. Let me fantasize it’s me bringing that throbbing little clit into my mouth and finishing you off.”

Another sob washed him in chills as she snapped her legs closed and arched from the bed, driving her shoulders into the pillow and lifting her hips. She thrust against her hand in gentle rolls belied by the strength of her cries.

He counted the waves as they coursed through her. So strong at first, and then gentler, until she collapsed against the bed in a heap of limp limbs and labored breaths.

“Fuck me,” he said, feeling something slick seep into the thin fabric of his boxers. “Cady I…I have to go.” He was about to make a fool of himself in a minute, because the release gathering in his spine promised to be something a man in a rainstorm didn’t deserve.

“Wait.” She sat up, facing the window at such an angle that he feared she could actually see him for a moment. She couldn’t…but the effect was eerie. “Not yet. I haven’t… What about you?”

Tenderness swamped him in silence for a full breath. “What about me? Your pleasure is my pleasure. I’m not going to—”

“Fox.” The strength in her voice stunned him into silence. “Fox. I’ll let you go on one condition.”

“What’s that?” She’d better tell him before he died from lack of blood to the brain.

“You tell me truthfully that you want to hang up. Tell me…that you don’t want my mouth around your cock.”