“I can handle rough.”
“And I’m gonna be hard.”
“I love it hard.”
“And fast.”
This time I laugh. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Ray takes me in his arms. “I’m gonna give it to you sweet, beautiful girl. Soft and sweet.”
Nuzzling his neck, I murmur, “What about the pain?”
“I never really knew pain until I woke up each morning and knew I wouldn’t see you. I never knew love until I held you in my arms.”
“I knew you loved me when you wouldn’t fight Tag,” I say. “That meant everything to me.”
Ray slants his mouth over mine and kisses me so deeply I feel it in my toes.
“I loved you a lot longer than that. Just took me a while to realize it.” He slides his hand into his pocket and pulls out the necklace. “Wear this for me. I spent an entire night driving around the city trying to think of a way for us to be together and to keep you safe when I couldn’t be with you all the time. I stopped for a coffee and I saw this in the window of a little jewelry shop beside the café. The stone reminded me so much of the color of your eyes, I went in and bought it, and then I thought of attaching the tracker so I could always be with you, always keep you safe. It came from the heart.”
I spin around and lift my hair so Ray can fasten it around my neck. Then I turn and close my eyes as the tiny weight settles between my breasts. “Welcome home,” I whisper.
This time his kiss is gentle, soft nibbles and licks, caressing my mouth. A wave of heat rushes through me. And something else—a fierce rush of emotion and a certainty I am where I belong.
I’m pretending they can’t see
“Mom. Dad. We have something to tell you.”
Sunday night before Luke’s trial, Tag and I have an emotional talk with our parents. We tell them what happened with Luke, and why we decided to keep it quiet. I tell them how putting the past behind me was the only way I could cope, and how the tats and piercings gave me the armor I needed to make it through each day. Mom dissolves into tears and tells me she’s sorry for giving me such a hard time, and if only I’d told her, she could have helped. Dad shakes his head and says he wishes he could have been there for us, and he would never have let anyone threaten his kids and get away with it. And where is this guy now, anyway?
So we give them the good news. Tag has been working hard to collect evidence against him, and we’re going to testify at the trial. They promise to be there. Dad says he wants to look Luke in the eye, so that if Dad ever meets him in a dark alley…
I tell him, actually, I have a new boyfriend who beat him to it.
When we’ve talked everything through and dried our tears, I call Ray. He is the first boyfriend I have ever invited for Sunday dinner. With his usual confidence, he walks into the house and shakes Dad’s hand. Dad asks him about his fights. Five minutes later, they are on the couch in front of the TV with Tag. Best friends forever.
Ray sits beside me at dinner and throws a casual arm over the back of my chair. Mom’s lips quiver as she tries to repress a smile. I have never seen her so sad and so happy as I have this evening. I could make her even happier if I told her about the baby, but since it hasn’t been three months yet, we’ve decided to wait.
“So, Ray. What do you do besides fight?” Dad leans back in his chair and I tense. My parents aren’t big on evasiveness, especially Dad, because he’s a straight-up kind of guy.
“PI work.” Ray strokes my shoulder. “I also served in the military and did a few other things. Moved around a lot. Not anymore. I found a girl who made me want to settle down.”
Dad nods and grunts his approval while Mom gives up on trying to hide her feelings and beams.
“You treat her right,” Dad says. “She’s my little girl, and Tag and I will always have her back.”
Ray gives me a gentle squeeze. “That makes three of us, but I don’t think she needs us anymore.”
* * *
That night, before the trial, I leave Ray asleep in his bed, pull on one of his T-shirts, and stand by his balcony window, looking out into the night. Barely visible through the smog, stars prick the dark gray sky, and ten stories below, the streets are empty and quiet. Danger lurks down in the darkness, but here, high in Ray’s tower, I am safe.
My hand drifts to my stomach. We are safe.
“People can see you in the window.” Ray curls an arm around me, pulling me into his chest. The room is dark around us save for a faint light streaming from his alcove.
“I know, but I’m pretending they can’t see me. That’s what I’m going to do tomorrow. I’m going to sit in the witness box, tell my story, and pretend no one else is around.”
Ray eases up the T-shirt and slips a hand underneath, cupping my breast in his warm palm. “I’ll be there. And your parents. And Jess too.”
I look back over my shoulder. “Okay. I’ll pretend no one else is there except the people I love.”
He tugs the T-shirt higher in the back and works his way underneath until he cradles both my breasts in his hands. “Luke will be there.”
“You’re ruining the moment.”
Ray laughs and rolls my nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. “Look him in the eyes when you say your piece. Show him your courage. Let him know he didn’t break you.”
“Only one man has come close to breaking me.” I grind against his hardened length barely concealed by his pajama pants, and Ray groans.
“And only one woman has ever brought me to my knees.” He slides both hands down my hips, and then grabs the edge of my T-shirt and whips it over my head.
“Ray!” Naked, in front of his balcony window, I am in full view of the apartments across from us and perhaps from the street below. And,
oh
God
, what a thrill.
“Pretend they can’t see you, beautiful girl.” Ray reaches around and pinches my nipples. “We’ll practice for tomorrow.”
“I’ll be wearing clothes.”
Ray chuckles. “Not in my mind. When I think of you, I always think of you naked.”
“Nice. I’m glad this relationship is only about sex.”
He laughs again. “Nothing wrong with sex. And since I have yet to take you out on a real date, taste your cooking, listen to your music, watch your movies, or read your books, I’ll take what I can get.”
“Well, then I just may be persuaded to put out tonight.”
Ray slips one hand between my legs and strokes his finger along my wet folds. “I don’t think it will take much persuading. My girl likes to be watched.”
“Shhhh.” I look back over my shoulder and press a finger to his lips. “I’m pretending they can’t see.”
He kicks my legs apart and presses his lips to my ear, his breath hot and moist against my skin. “But they can see. They see my hand stroking your pussy. They see your breasts swollen and your nipples peaked with arousal. They see your skin flushed, and your lips pink and plump and waiting to be kissed.”
“What else do they see?”
“They see the present I’m going to give you.” He pulls away, leaving me bereft, but returns moments later with a small silver box.
“I got these for you, to replace what you gave up.” He opens the box and pulls out a pair of nipple clamps with tiny glass beads dangling from the fine filigree silverwork.
I let out a whimper of fear and Ray laughs. “Lookit those wide eyes going all green on me. Yeah, they’ll hurt, but they’ll feel good too.” He gently turns me to face the window and then pulls me into the safety of his chest. “Let them see you, Sia. Show them how much you like your present.”
Gritting my teeth, I look out over the city. Few lights shine through the windows at this late hour, and surely no one can see us. And even if they could, would anyone know me, naked, aroused, and in the arms of the man I love?
Ray rolls my right nipple between his thumb and forefinger, then reaches around me with both hands and carefully slides the clamp around the tip before tightening the rubber ring.
“Aaaaah.” I shriek and step back into his chest, but he drops his arm to my waist and holds me tight. “The more you move, the more it will pinch. Now be a good girl and stay still.” He repeats the process with my other nipple, rolling it first, then affixing the clamp carefully just below where the piercing was. I give a small murmur of appreciation that he has remembered it is still tender, and then I gasp as a zing of pleasure pain shoots straight to my clit.
“Look at yourself,” Ray whispers in my ear as he points to the window. “So beautiful, I want everyone to see you. So precious, I will never let you go.”
Trying to ignore the throb in my nipples, I change my focus and catch a glimpse of myself in the window, my soft, curvy body against the hard planes of Ray’s chest, my skin pale against his darkness—and the twinkle of silverwork dangling from my nipples, brighter than the stars.
“I’m gonna fuck you against this window.” His voice drops to a husky growl. “And you’re gonna think about everyone watching. And it’s gonna make you hot. And it’s gonna make you wet. And when you come, you’re gonna scream so loud, everyone will hear you.”
“Soon?” I wiggle my ass against him. “I need to come so badly, I ache.”
“I know.” He strokes his thumb over my cheek. “And I know it hurts. But you’ll have to wait. You aren’t ready yet.”
A whine escapes my lips. “I’m so wet, it’s dripping down my thighs.”
“And it’s a beautiful sight.” He twines his hand through my hair and pulls my head back, then leans down and takes possession of my mouth. Hard, demanding, his kiss melts my body and my knees tremble. He tightens his fist, and his tongue plunges deep as he tugs gently on the right clamp with his free hand. With every tug, a bolt of lightning shoots straight to my core and my vision blurs.
Ray releases my hair and slides one hand over my throat, resting a finger in the hollow of the base as he continues to play with the clamps with his other hand. My breath catches as he increases the pressure ever so slightly.
“Easy, beautiful girl. It’s a lot to take. I’ll go slow.”
His erotic words spark a slow burn between my legs that spreads through my body like wildfire. I rock my hips, but all he does is turn his attention downward, cupping his hand over my sex and stroking along my folds, avoiding the one place I so desperately want to be stroked.
“You are mine, Sia. Mine to play with. Mine to love.”
“Yours.” Arousal rushes through me. The feeling of his hand on my neck, possessive and controlling, and yet safe and protecting, sweeps away the last vestiges of my anxiety about our show in the window and my body softens against him.
“That’s right,” he says. “Give it all to me.”
“Make me come.”
Ray laughs. “As you command, but I’m gonna take the clamps off first, and I won’t lie, it will hurt more than when they went on.”
He takes one off.
He does not lie.
I gasp as blood rushes to my breast. Ray leans down and draws my burning nipple into his mouth, soothing it with gentle licks of his tongue until I’m panting with need. Reaching down, I cup the steel of his erection in my palm, stroking him through his pajama pants, hopefully into a painful, desperate need to come. Like me.
The removal of the second clamp is even worse, his tongue even more arousing, and within moments, I am writhing in his arms, my only thought how I can get him inside me.
“Ray. Please.”
A slow, sensual smile spreads across his lips. “There we are. We’re gonna take back the night.”
He strips off his pajama pants and kneels naked in front of me, his erection huge and heavy between his legs. With infinite patience, he traces lazy circles along the sensitive skin of my inner thighs in a slow, tortuous tease, then parts my folds, holding me wide open. “I like to see your pussy all pink and wet and dripping for me.”
“I like to see your cock thrusting into my pussy,” I say, my usual reticence giving way to desperation. “I like to see it hard and hot and throbbing, sliding in and out, making me yours in every way you can take me.”
With a low growl, he shoots to his feet, cups my ass, and lifts me against him until I am braced between the window and his body, his shaft pressed tight against my clit. “You want me to fuck you against the window? You want everyone to watch me claim you, make you come?”
My body tightens, and I grind my clit against his shaft. “Yes, Ray. Like this. Love me like this with the whole world watching.”
Meeting my gaze for a heartbeat, he lifts me and thrusts his way deep into my sex. His thickness thrills me, fills me, and my overly sensitized tissue swells against his hardness.
“Harder. More.”
With a chuckle, he pulls me closer, opening me to him as he pulls out and thrusts in again. And then he is everywhere—warm lips on my nipples, firm fingers on my clit, and his cock so beautifully thick and hard pounding into me in a ceaseless rhythm.
Sensation builds on sensation, until I am thrashing against him, clinging to his shoulders, as I teeter at the edge of release. When he finally pinches my clit, I overload. My sex contracts and convulses, my body tightens, and I come so violently, I shriek his name.
Ray hammers into me, drawing out my orgasm, and then he climaxes, his shaft becoming impossibly hard before he swells and throbs inside me. With a shuddering breath, he leans forward and rests his head against mine, his breathing hot and hard, his heart pounding against my chest.
“Think of that tomorrow, when you’re pretending no one is there.”
“Think of how you loved me without any pain.”
Ray smiles. “It seems my plan was a double success.”
My lips curl into a smile. “This was your plan? Make me think of sex instead of worrying about what I’m going to say?”
He nuzzles my neck and pulls me closer. “Man sees his woman standing by the window, her hair tousled, her beautiful long legs bare, wearing his shirt, he gets a little emotional. He finds out that she’s worrying about something when she should be resting, ’cause she’s carrying his child, he’s gotta do something about it.”
“So kinky sex was your solution?”
“Loving you was the solution.” He kisses the sensitive dip between my neck and my shoulder. “Sex was a bonus.”
“Promise you’ll be there tomorrow.” I brush a kiss over his lips.
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” Ray says. “And every tomorrow after that.”
* * *
Party time.
The Redemption boys love to party. And tonight is no exception. After Tag and I testified earlier this week, his other witness came forward and testified too. Luke is in jail. His family is under investigation for threats. The trial made the evening news, and more women are coming forward. Justice is done and served on a silver platter. And Redemption wants to celebrate.
After christening Phoenix Ink, now managed by me, Torment shouts that protein shakes are on the house. Fighters stampede toward the little café, and the owner’s eyes widen in fear. Lucky for him, Shayla and Doctor Death have offered to help out, and they run the blenders like there’s no tomorrow.
Glancing quickly around the gym, where fighters are dancing, chatting, and, of course, fighting, I lean against a lat machine, slide my hand into my handbag, and pull out a handful of contraband potato chips. One whiff of greasy goodness and my mouth waters.
“Bad.” Ray snatches the chips out of my hand. “Chips are full of unhealthy fats and chemicals. My boy needs good, healthy food.” He waves to Rampage and shouts, “Get Sia a whey protein shake. Extra wheatgrass.”
My lips tighten into a thin line. “First, your boy may be a girl. And second, I’m not a dog, Ray. Or a small child. If I want to eat potato chips, I—”
“Won’t.” He clasps my hand and kisses my palm. “’Cause you don’t want your man to worry. A man who isn’t worrying is a happy man. Happy men buy sexy presents. Sexy presents lead to sexy times.”