Page 60 of Mayhem

I kept my hands on the railing. My knuckles went white.

“Fuck—Echo—”

“Shut up.” She squeezed my throat for emphasis and fucked herself down harder. “You don’t get to talk your way through this one.”

I still talked. I couldn’t help it. The words came out rough and half-laughed between the punched-out breaths she was forcing out of me.

“You’re dripping down my cock and still looking at me like you want to put me through the wall. That the attachment problem talking, or do you just hate how much you like this?”

She answered by grinding down in a tight circle that made the piercing catch and drag until my vision narrowed. A broken sound left my throat. She felt it under her palm and smiled—mean, satisfied—and did it again.

I lasted longer than I expected only because she was using me for her own pace, not letting me thrust up the way I wanted. When I tried, she tightened her hand in warning and slowed just enough to make the denial hurt. So I stayed still and took it: the wet heat of her sliding up and down my cock, the way her inner walls fluttered every time the barbell scraped that perfect spot, the sting of her nails starting to dig into the side of my neck, the smell of sex and leather and the faint copper of the blood still on my lip.

She came first. I felt it in the sudden, vicious clench around me, the way her rhythm stuttered and her thighs shook against my hips. A low, guttural sound tore out of her throat and she kept moving through it, milking every pulse, using my cock to ride the orgasm out until she was oversensitive and still not stopping. The second those rhythmic squeezes hit I was done. My head dropped back against the wall and I came hard—thick, heavy pulses that flooded her while she was still grinding down, forcing every drop deeper.

She didn’t climb off immediately. She stayed seated on my cock, breathing hard, hand still loose around my throat while the aftershocks kept fluttering through her. Come was already slipping out around the base of me every time either of us shifted, warm and messy down my balls and the inside of her thigh.

Only when her breathing evened did she ease up. She lifted off me slowly, the wet sound of my cock leaving her filthy in the quiet stairwell. Come streaked the inside of her thigh and the front of my trousers. She looked at the mess, then at my face, and the anger had burned down into something sharper and more satisfied.

I stayed against the wall while she tugged her panties and pants back into place, then fixed my own clothes with hands that weren’t quite steady. By the time we were dressed again the only evidence left was the faint red marks of her fingers on my throat and the way both of us still smelled like what we’d just done.

As we dressed, Echo had recovered enough energy to glare at me while fixing the hem of her shirt. She looked less angry than before, which did not mean the argument was finished. I knew better than to mistake sex for resolution, especially with her.

“You’re still an asshole,” she said as she checked that she had everything she came down with. “And if you jump in front of me again when I have something handled, I’m going to make you regret it.”

“I heard you the first time.” I picked up the jacket she had dropped and held it out rather than trying to put it on her. “I’ll try to give you the second it takes to decide for yourself. That’s what I can actually promise.”

Echo took the jacket but did not put it on immediately. The threat in her expression eased just enough that I knew she understood the difference. “That’s marginally less irritating,” she said.

“I’ll take it.”

echo

Hunter left me with three instructions and the kind of look that suggested he knew none of them would survive the evening intact. Finish the paper I had been bitching about since Monday. Stay out of his desk. Leave Nichlas alone. He delivered all three while pulling on his coat, already distracted by whatever fresh headache Desmond had decided required a family dinner instead of a phone call, and I gave him the same vague nod I used whenever one of my fathers told me not to do something they already knew I was considering.

Malakai lingered near the elevator long enough to look at me twice, probably still carrying the argument from earlier around in that giant head of his. Ronan checked the time, said something to Hunter about being late, and the three of them disappeared behind the closing doors before anybody decided leaving me alone was a terrible idea.

I lasted twelve minutes before my phone buzzed.

The first message was from Nichlas.

Can we talk?

I stared at it long enough for another to appear.

I mean actually talk. I need you to listen to me.

Nichlas had spent most of the last few weeks avoiding anywhere I might breathe in his direction. He had changed tables, routes, study rooms, the hours he ate, and probably the side of the bed he slept on if he thought I might somehow crawl through the other one. He had begged for more protection, watched me walk around with the men who were supposed to keep me away from him, and learned that Hunter’s promise did not mean I had to make his remaining time comfortable.

I typed back.

Kings’ lounge.

His response came quickly.

Are they there?

I looked toward the elevator, then across the quiet room Hunter had just entrusted to me.