Passion and Ink (Sweetest Taboo) Read online

  She slips her hand under my shirt, stroking over the hypersensitive skin of my back. Nails rake over the muscle there, and it isn’t tender or hesitant. Like her kiss, the touch is pleasure edged in pain, demanding. A dare to come for more. If I have the balls.

  That last tether of restraint snaps like an old, brittle rubber band.

  I take her mouth again, devouring it as I shuffle her backward until her spine meets the wall. My hands tear open the belt and few buttons holding her coat closed, shoving inside and cupping the slightly more-than-a-handful tits that have been tormenting me with mental images of how they would look and taste. Firm, but weighed down a bit by their fullness. Nipples the color of ripe, rich berries. Taste like the apples-and-roses scent that teases my nose even now. As an artist, I have a very vivid imagination, and with her, it’s a blessing and a curse.

  A groan rumbles out of me as I squeeze and mold her flesh. An answering low rumble of sound rolls out of her mouth, mingling with mine. She arches into my touch, her other hand releasing my shirt and joining its twin on my back. Her lashes flutter, lowering, hiding her eyes from me. But the parting of her lips and the greedy little swipe of her tongue over her bottom lip conveys her pleasure. As does the full-body shiver that quakes through her.

  Jesus, she’s soft. Except for the tips that get the sweep of my thumbs across them. Those are diamond-hard, and my mouth damn near aches with the need to get my tongue wrapped around them. Discover their texture, determine if she loves long, lazy licks, abrupt stabs, or even the graze of my teeth.

  “Tell me I’m making these tight and aching, not the cold.” I tweak the peaks with my forefingers and thumbs in emphasis. “Tell me you want my mouth on you, tasting these gorgeous tits with my tongue, and getting you wet and hurting.” I study her face as if I’m lost and she’s the road map leading me to my destination. In this second, the need for her answer, her go-ahead, is as vital to me as my tattoo machine or ink.

  “Yes.” She gives another of those sexy growls and, lifting her arms, tunnels her fingers through my hair. I lock my jaw against the bite of pain across my scalp, loving it. Craving more of it.

  “Say the rest of it,” I order, as steel that is the result of the clawing pleasure attacking my dick infiltrates my voice. Bowing my head, I drag my lips up her throat, pausing to nip the tendon running the length of it hard enough to elicit another of those feral sounds from her. My hips punch forward, grinding my cock against her belly. “Fuck,” I snap before retreating a fraction, just enough to allow air between our bodies. “Say it.”

  Her fingers tighten in my hair, tugging hard enough to sting. As if punishing me for daring to order her to do anything. Goddamn. Would she challenge me about pushing her to her knees, or would she swallow my dick to the back of her throat? My heart thumps against my chest at just the thoughts, and a surge of lust has me momentarily light-headed. I’ve never insisted on control during sex; as long as who I’m with gets theirs, and I get mine, I’m good. But with her… That fight for dominance pumps the breath from my lungs in heavy, hard rasps. With her, I would enjoy the battle.

  “Put your mouth on me,” she finally says, wearing a hint of a snarl. She might be giving me back my words, but by no mistake is this a plea; it’s an issued command heavy with full expectation of obedience. “Fuck me with your tongue.” She jerks on my hair again, and it’s me who’s complying as I lower my head. “And make it good,” she whispers against my lips.

  I briefly close my eyes, silently muttering a prayer that I don’t maul her like a wild beast or, worse, come before I even get a chance to touch her bare skin. Somehow, I manage not to commit either sin, but her murmured demand made it a close call. She might as well have reached down inside my jeans, wrapped her hand around my dick, and delivered a hard, rough pump. Just the way I love it.

  Without breaking our locked gazes, I bend, cup the backs of her thighs, and hike her higher. Shifting forward, I pin her between the wall and my body, wedging my cock between her thighs, snug and tight against her denim-covered sex.

  It’s probably my imagination that I can feel her soft flesh cushioning me. Can feel the damp heat of her sex warming me. Either my imagination or my desperation.

  Neither stops me from grinding my dick over her. From rolling my hips forward over and over, dragging my cockhead over her clit. My zipper digs into my flesh, and the dull edge of pain perversely intensifies the pleasure, taking it from technicolor to HD.

  Her fingers curl into my shoulders, and she hangs on to me—but for leverage, not for support. With every stroke, she lifts into it, giving as good as she’s getting. Her low whimpers and rough pants punctuate the air and tighten the vise grip on my balls. In all the years since I started fucking, I’m sure there must have been a woman who unraveled my control like scissors taken to a weathered rope. This waitress with the soul-deep, shadowed eyes, sinful mouth, and damn-a-man-to-hell curves can’t be the exception. I’m sure of it… But even if I was under threat of torture by water boarding, I can’t recall that time.

  Lifting her higher and dipping my head, I latch onto a nipple through her shirt, drawing on it, material and all, dampening both. Even with cotton separating me from her flesh, the hard nub is perfect in my mouth. I graze my teeth over her, and her choked scream is a dirty little ditty to my ears. A small, dark thrill runs through the illogical, primitive part of my brain. And that part takes a corrupted joy in her walking back into that bar, shirt wet, telegraphing to every person who sets eyes on her that she allowed me to put my hands, my mouth, my dick on her. Not them. Me. They get to look, but I’m the one who gets to touch.

  I should be appalled at the possessive thought; it’s so out there, it should have me setting her down to her feet and backing away. It should. Instead I open my mouth wider, suck firmer, dry-fuck harder.

  Suddenly impatient and with greed one bitch of a task master, I raise one hand to the wall next to her head and lower the other to the V-neck of her shirt, tugging down the collar and revealing golden skin that gleams even in the weak light of the alley. Anticipation winds through the lust like a shimmering thread, and I almost drag out this moment. But I’m not that strong. And my dick is that hard.

  A hard yank, and her tit pops over the top of the shirt. Damn. My groan rumbles up out of me before I can trap it. Not that I particularly want to. I like her knowing what the sight of her does to me. Just as I hoard every one of those little keening cries, serrated puffs of breath, and jerk of her hips as my reward.

  “So goddamn beautiful,” I praise against her flesh, raking a berry-colored nipple across my bottom lip. Then my top. I lick it, then go back for seconds, enjoying more than I should the texture of her thick, rounded peak. Enjoying the stiffness of it that is a result of what I’m doing to her. Cupping her, I offer her as a gift to myself, and I take it. Tasting, teasing, feasting. Worshipping.

  Her hands skirt from my shoulders back to my head, nails pinching my scalp. She arches into me, back bowing, an unrestrained, uninhibited sexual animal. Her hips pump away in short, jerky strokes over my cock, and it doesn’t matter that I just met her less than an hour ago. I can tell she’s close. My sole purpose for existing suddenly executes a one-eighty, and tattooing, family, and work take a back seat to making her come. To making her sex clench and quiver. To having her body shake. To hearing her scream my name, even though I never gave it to her.

  Hauling down the other side of her shirt, I free more of her, pulling the neglected tip into my mouth, showing her no mercy.

  “God, please, please, please…” The broken litany of prayer falls from her, and she uses me like a stripper works a pole, sliding, grinding, lifting, and dropping…

  A cheery, light jingle erupts into the night like a barrage of gunfire.

  “No,” she breathes, stiffening against me, her chest rising and falling on her harsh breaths, breasts trembling. The same words ricochet inside my head like a loud, wailing siren. I slap my other hand up against the wall on the other s
ide of her head, burying my face in her neck. Better so she doesn’t see the tears springing to my eyes. Okay, no tears, but goddamn, do I feel like crying. “That’s my alarm. My break is over,” she whispers.

  My body is one big, pounding throb, but underneath me, she trembles like a leaf on a storm-whipped wind. It reverberates through me, and I clench my jaw. As hard and aching as I am, no way in hell can I leave her like this.

  “Give me the go-ahead, sweetheart,” I growl in her ear, nipping her lobe. “You’ll be late getting back to work, but tell me to, and I’ll take care of you.” I slowly lower her until her feet touch the ground. But I leave her tits bared to the night air. To me. Slipping the tip of my finger beneath the hem of her shirt, I trace the band of her jeans, brushing the soft skin of her stomach. Damn, this woman. I bow my head and rub my mouth over her exposed nipple one more time, and her grip in my hair tightens as a shudder rips through her. “Tell me,” I order. Plead. Whatever. As long as she lets me get her off.

  “Yes,” she breathes, shifting her stance, spreading her thighs wider. Not waiting for me, she tears at the top button of her jeans and yanks the zipper down, exposing a wedge of black lace-covered skin. “Do it.”

  The two words are hoarse, riddled with need, but not a request. And damn if I can even put up the pretense of disobeying the direct command, of making her wait. Recapturing a hard peak between my lips, I wrap my tongue around it as I flatten my palm on her belly. And slide down, down, until hot, wet pussy fills my hand.

  Her cry bounces off the brick walls, the dingy windows, the fucking sky. Jesus, she’s soft…so soft and silky. It takes every scrap of control I’ve managed to scavenge not to drop to my knees, drag her clothes down, and bury my face between her thighs. But if I did that, no way in hell would I hurry. Screw being late; she might not make it back to work, period.

  Switching breasts, I take as much of her into my mouth as I can and, stroking a path up her soaking slit, circle her clit. It leaps and pulses under my finger. How is it possible that I’m jealous as a motherfucker of my own finger? Groaning, I set up a firm, relentless rhythm over her sex, mimicking the caress on her nipple.

  She writhes and twists against my mouth and hand. Hips bucking, she drops one hand to my wrist, encircling it. Not to remove my touch, but to hold it there. As if there’s a chance in hell of me leaving.

  “Oh God,” she rasps, a cross between a sob and moan throbbing in her voice. “Please. I need…give it me.” The words trip over themselves, tumbling from her.

  She’s close; her clit stiffens under my touch, and licking my path up her chest and neck, I demand in her ear, “Jay. Say it when you come.” I give her the shortened version of my name, craving that small connection that escorts this from anonymous to something intimate. Something that’s mine.

  Loosing my wrist, she grabs my head between both hands and tugs it up. Reluctantly, I release her nipple, but she isn’t giving me much choice. I straighten, and though she’s at least half a foot shorter than me, it’s her who has me in complete check. Though I issued her a command, it’s me who’s at her beck and call in this moment, and I crave her go-ahead, her permission.

  “Jay,” she damn near purrs. That’s it. Just my name, like I asked. Asked, hell. Just like I begged.

  A rush of fierce hunger, satisfaction, and exhilaration blasts through me, and it’s almost heady. Crushing my mouth to hers, I thrust two fingers inside her, grinding the heel of my palm against her clit.

  She screams into my mouth, and I swallow it down, already craving another. Already wanting another chance to have her slick, firm walls squeeze my fingers, milking them. No, no, I need her pussy clutching at my cock, even my tongue.

  I just need it again.

  I continue to thrust slowly, as much as her jeans allow, rubbing her clit until the last shudder eases from her frame. Only when she wilts against me do I remove my hand, and unable to resist—who am I kidding? I don’t want to resist—I slide my fingers between my lips.

  God, her taste. It’s sweet, tangy, fresh like ripened fruit. I lick every evidence of her from my skin. And I still want more.

  “I need to get back, or my supervisor’s going to fire me for taking too long on my break,” she says, voice husky from the screams that still resonate in the night air, in me. She stares at me, that gaze settled on my mouth as I savor her. Then she shakes her head, hard. Once more, before I can tend to her, she quickly adjusts her clothes. Shrugging out of my jacket, she extends it toward me. “Thank you, I—”

  “Keep it,” I say, stepping back. Then another step. Not so I won’t change my mind and accept the coat. No, I don’t trust myself not to grab her and finish what we started out here, job be damned. Because I don’t want this to end. For the twenty minutes we’ve been out here, the relentless, encroaching loneliness disappeared. She pushed back the shadows for a little while, and I’m selfish enough to beg for more of it.

  For more of her.

  “What?” She glances over her shoulder at the door behind her, then returns her attention to me, frowning. “I can’t just take your—”

  “Give it to me later,” I interrupt her again. “Tonight, when I pick you up after you finish here.” Her frown deepens into a scowl, and her lips part, probably to tell me in vivid and succinct detail where to go and how I can get there. But I beat her to it. “Come home with me.”

  Surprise flares in her eyes, but then they narrow, hiding any emotion from me. I still move forward, reclaiming the space I inserted between us, and brush the backs of my fingers down her cheek, following the delicate line of her jaw before letting my arm fall to my side.

  “I’m not trying to insult you or imply that because you let me touch you out here, you owe me something. Believe me when I say that was all my pleasure. But I want more than a quick finger-fuck. One night, sweetheart. Give me one night with you.”

  For several long moments, only the sounds of Chicago’s nightlife filter into the alley, surrounding us: the murmur of voices, scattered with occasional bursts of laughter and curses; the faint chime of the bell over the door of the convenience store as someone enters or exits; the rush of cars passing on the street, including one with bad need of a new muffler.

  One thing missing is the rasp of my breath. All the air in my body is trapped in my lungs, suspended. It shouldn’t be this important. I just met her. Don’t know her last name. She doesn’t even know my real one, first or last. Yet getting her to say yes to letting me have her for several more hours has become vital. Necessary.

  “I don’t get out of here until two a.m.,” she finally murmurs.

  I silently exhale, my chest aching from the lack of oxygen. “I’ll be here.” She could’ve said six a.m., and my answer would’ve been the same.

  She nods, her scrutiny on my face unwavering, hooded. “All right.”

  Do I realize that I’m using her like some kind of sexual fifth of Vodka guaranteed to grant me several hours of forgetfulness? Yeah. And part of me feels like a douche about it. But the other part… That part has no conscience, no thought but being balls deep inside her. No concern other than my cock getting its turn at having that tight-as-a-vise pussy gripping and squeezing it.

  Still, not all of me is ruled by my dick. And I’m not too far gone that I can’t make sure she understands what she’s agreeing to.

  “One night,” I repeat as she again turns toward the bar’s exit. “You understand what I’m saying, Ro?” I ask, using her name for the first time since this strange but exhilarating dance between us started. “That’s all I have to give you. It’s all I want to give,” I continue, giving her the truth no matter how much of it paints me with the asshole brush.

  But to not lay it all out there really does make me a douche. With all the crap going on in my life—heavy career decisions, family issues, an ex who refuses to acknowledge she’s an ex—I’m looking for an escape, not another complication. Another responsibility.

  Another opportunity to disappoint.


  The corner of her mouth quirks. “I understand the definition of a one-night stand perfectly,” she drawls. Then, before I can respond, she tosses my coat toward me. On reflex, I snatch it out the air. “I’ll meet you out front at two. And if you’re going to be standing out here freezing your ass off, you might need this.”

  With that, she pulls open the door and disappears through it.

  I stare at the spot where she stood, a little stunned, a little confused, and a lot aroused. Shaking my head, I glance down at my watch. A little under three hours until she’s off.

  “Shit,” I mutter, pinching the bridge of my nose.

  This—propositioning this woman—is either the most brilliant thing I’ve done today.

  Or the dumbest.

  For the life of me, I can’t tell which one.

  Chapter Four

  Cypress

  Holy hellfire, I’m going to fuck an angel. I’m going to hell.

  The inane condemnation of my eternal soul slides through my head as I push my arms through my coat and cinch the belt around my waist. My coat had seemed perfectly adequate to combat the winter chill before tonight. Before a certain man had draped his own jacket over mine and stood in the night air, impervious to the cold, his only concern my warmth as his huge body blocked the brisk wind.

  I pull my belt tighter, as if it can quell and contain the flutter in my belly. I don’t do “flutters.” That’s too sweet, a fanciful term for romantics who don’t recognize that chivalry is not just dead, but it’s been staked through the heart, burned, and had its ashes scattered over the grave of the white knight and his steed.

  But a few hours ago, in that dimly lit alley? Chivalry had somehow pulled a Jesus Christ and resurrected like it was Easter Sunday, transforming this Doubting Thomas into a believer.