Page 35 of Rope Burn

I hold still. The reflection shows her mouth opening on a breath she can't control, her gaze locked on mine. My free hand grips her hip hard enough that she'll feel the bruise tomorrow, and I let her feel the full weight of what's coming before I give her any of it.

"Keep watching."

I move. Slow, controlled strokes that let the friction build with each withdrawal and return. She pushes back for more, but I decide how much she gets. My hand slides around her hip and finds her clit again, circling in time with my thrusts, and the dual sensation buckles her arms.

"Eyes up."

She lifts her head. The reflection is stripped bare. Flushed, open, every professional layer peeled back. She watches my body driving into hers, my grip on her hip, and her own composure breaking apart in the glass. The dresser edge presses into her hipbones with every stroke, and the effort of holding the position while I control the pace shows in the tremor running through her arms.

My pace increases. The dresser shifts against the wall with each stroke, and the mirror vibrates in its frame. Her body tightens around me in increments I can track, and when the orgasm hits, it's singular and devastating.

Her inner muscles clamp around my cock so hard that my vision narrows to the point of contact. The contractions come in deep, rhythmic pulses that grip and release and grip again, each one stronger than the last, and the force of her body bearing down on me sends a shudder through my arms that nearly buckles them.

She cries out. The sound is raw and guttural, torn from somewhere lower than her throat, and she doesn't try to muffle it. Her spine bows until her forehead almost touches the wood. Her fingers scrabble for a grip on the surface and find nothing. The tremor running through her thighs spreads into her hips, her belly and her shoulders until her entire body is shaking around me and against me and under my hands.

In the mirror, her face is wrecked. Open-mouthed, flushed from her collarbones to her hairline, tears at the corners of her eyes. She watches herself come apart with my cock inside her and my hand on her hip and the marks I've left on her neck visible in the glass. Her eyes stay locked on the reflection through every wave of it.

I last through three more strokes. The grip of her body during the aftershocks breaks what's left of my control, and I drive deep and hold.

The release hits low in my spine and detonates upward. My hips lock forward, buried to the root, and the first pulse of warmth spilling inside her drags a sound from my chest that I don't recognize and can't stop. My fingers dig into the flesh of her hip hard enough to leave marks. My other hand flattens on the dresser, bracing, because my arms are shaking and the man who controlled every second of this encounter is no longer in command of his own body.

I come inside her in long, heavy waves that I feel through my cock and my belly and my chest and the backs of my teeth. Each pulse draws a groan from me that I bury against her neck, my mouth open on her skin, tasting the salt of her sweat while my body empties itself in a release that strips me as thoroughly as I stripped her. I hold her exactly where I want her until the last tremor leaves me and my breathing comes back in jagged pulls against the curve of her shoulder.

The glass catches both of us. Her eyes find mine. Neither of us looks away.

I pull out of her slowly, and the loss of contact draws a quiet sound from both of us. Before her legs finish deciding whether they'll hold, I turn her around and lift her. She weighs nothing against my chest. Her arms come around my neck and her face presses into the hollow of my throat, and the three steps to the bed are the shortest distance I've ever wanted to last longer.

I set her down and follow her onto the mattress. She curls into me with her head tucked below my jaw, and neither of us reaches for clothes. The air conditioner hums. The highway fills the silence.

This is what ordinary feels like. I'd forgotten. She falls asleep with her hand open on my ribs, the weight of it barely there, and I lie still and let her have the quiet.

On the nightstand, my phone buzzes.

I reach for it without waking her. The screen glows in the dark, and the message is an image file from a number I don't recognize.

The photograph was taken from outside. Through the curtain gap at the window bracket, the one I pushed at twice and couldn't fully close. A long lens, steady hand, someone who stood in the dark and waited while I touched her.

The angle is narrow. The patience behind it is not. Two figures beside the dresser, the posture between them unambiguous. Her face is partially turned toward the glass, and the clarity is sharp enough that anyone who knows her would recognize her. My scarred hands are visible against her skin. The marks I left on her neck are visible too.

Neil was outside this room while I was inside it. He watched long enough to frame the shot, chose the moment that would do the most damage, and pressed the shutter while Morgan's face was turned toward the light.

Below the image, a single line of text:

Interesting company, Carrick.

My hand finds Morgan's shoulder in the dark. My eyes go to the curtain gap where the lot light seeps through.

My hand tightens on Morgan's shoulder. Her truck is in the lot with plates Neil can run. By morning, he'll know every name she's ever carried, and which ones don't check out.

10

MORGAN

The vendor booth at the south end of the row belongs to someone who doesn't know my name. A woman in her forties sits behind the display table, arranging different merchandise into rows with the ease of someone who does it regularly.

"Is Penny around today?" My voice stays level because this is still the job. The lanyard sits against my collarbone, Morgan Engel, Western Range Mutual, and the clipboard rides my forearm the way it has at every stop on the circuit.

The woman shrugs without looking up from the trays. "I got the space through the weekend. That's all I was told."