Page 27

“The source,” I murmur, staring down at where our hands are entwined in Natalia’s lap.

“The fucking source…” Guilt wells up around me like water trapping a passenger on a sinking ship.

I pull her close and linger on a kiss to her forehead, choosing my words carefully.

“Did you happen to show the contents of the flash drive to your publisher?”

She shakes her head. “When Nefeli asked to look, I panicked. I didn’t want her to force me to move on it. So, uh… I claimed it was ‘clearly a prank’ and said I’d thrown away the flash drive.” She winces. “Because Alexander Laskaris did see it first. Me saying it was a hoax bought some time.”

My stomach sinks. I cradle one side of her face. “You oughtn’t have risked your job like that. She’ll think you’re biased, or at the very least, terribly careless.”

“I know.” She leans into my palm, then takes my hand between both of hers. “Clean slate, okay? The past is the past—whatever was done or said by either of us. I don’t want to haul our old screwups around anymore like a sack of wet laundry.”

I nod. “You’re certain you could forgive me if I gave you details?”

A look of wry humor flits over her lips. “Wow, you’re making it sound pretty bad. Am I going to be sorry I said yes when I find skeletons buried under your rosebushes?”

Relieved laughter stutters out of me. “Nothing of the sort, that much I can swear. My crime is… of an ethical nature. And more personal than professional.”

Her fingers comb through the hair over my left ear. “You look so sheepish. Like a guilty little boy. And I love—” She sucks in a breath, then bites her lower lip.

In the fading light, Natalia and I study each other.

Leaning in for a delicate kiss, I ask, “Were you going to say you love me?”

“Maybe,” she whispers against my lips. “ Possibly. ” She pushes my jacket off and begins unbuttoning my shirt. I slide a hand up her thigh, and she opens her legs to give me access. “It’s been too long—all the waiting is torture…”

A lingering cloud of guilt over what hasn’t been said hovers near, but the momentum of lust propels us forward nonetheless.

I want to give her more pleasure than she’s ever known, more connection than I’ve ever dared.

Perhaps it’s na?ve to think we can fix everything with our bodies, but tonight—after a month of self-recrimination—I finally feel hope again.

Everything in me needs to honor her, worship her.

My fingers reach the warm satin stretched taut over her pussy as she angles toward me.

I caress slowly front to back, then settle my thumb over her clit, pressing down lightly and then stopping.

Her tightly shut eyes open with a longing look.

She arches a few inches to take the tension out of the fabric from the way she’s twisted in the seat.

I hook a fingertip into the gusset and draw the damp fabric aside, zeroing in on her swollen bud and stroking.

Her head drops back against the seat. For a few minutes, she breathes in a fractured pattern of sighs, punctuated with silence as she holds her breath, chasing her pleasure.

“Let’s get in the back,” she manages, just above a whisper. “I want more.”

“You forget, kleine Hexe, that I’ve neglected to bring my…

umbrella .”

Her laugh is a groan, and her thighs tighten around my hand. “We can do other things. Come on.”

We straighten our disarrayed clothes enough to exit and relocate into the back.

Natalia adjusts the bench-style seat, creating maximal room.

Wrestling out of her blouse, she sits perpendicular to me, legs draped sideways over mine.

A mosaic of sunset-pinked light and ginkgo tree shadow paints her bare calves.

I smooth a hand from her ankles up to the eager heat at the apex of her thighs.

“I’m so glad it’s too hot for tights,” she breathes.

I slip my other hand under the skirt and pinch one side of her silky panties, giving a little tug. “Shall we remove these?”

Her look is wicked. “ No. Touch me through them. It makes me feel like I’m doing something I’m not supposed to.”

My fingers glide over the satin in lazy passes, circling and teasing until the fabric is soaked and Natalia is sprawled against the door, one foot planted on the floor, the other shoeless and flexing, toes curled as she cocks her hips in time with my caresses.

“What an indecent girl you are,” I taunt, slipping my hand beneath the fabric.

She’s so wet that my cock jolts. I slowly push two fingers into her and she moans, high and trembling. My thumb returns to her clit, finding the rhythm that draws from her a whispered chain of “Yes… yes …” slow and soft and steady as water droplets.

She clenches around my fingers and I push in deeper, sensing what she needs. A dappling of sweat is on her upper lip, one glistening bead at her temple like a lustful diamond.

“Don’t stop, don’t… oh please don’t stop…”

“Never,” I murmur back.

She grips the shoulder of my unbuttoned shirt, and I see and feel the storm overtake her—head tossing to one side, throwing her dark hair across her face as her hips jerk upward and she pulses on my fingers, a startled cry trailing off to a panting whimper.

I lighten my touch, skimming her clit gingerly, and she locks her thighs on my hand hard, covering the area with both of hers as if trying to hold the pleasure there forever.

Scooping her into my free arm, I gather her against my chest. She sags on my shoulder, raking hair away from her face. Gradually catching her breath, she gropes for my cheek and lays a hand on it. Her thumb passes once back and forth over my lips.

“Thank you,” she says in a dreamy voice.

“I may never get used to how beautiful that looks.” I embrace her closer, kissing the dewiness of her forehead. “So thank you .”

She sits up and repositions herself and her skirt to straddle my lap. With one hand she glides a path down my chest and stomach, settling over my cock, which asserts itself in an aching black-denim-encased bulge.

“I’ve inspired you,” she teases, yanking the button and easing the zipper down.

“In countless ways.”

She falls against my lips with an eager sigh, and soon she has my bare cock in her grip. She strokes me, long and slow, as we kiss.

“ Klaus ,” she whispers. “Can we…? I mean, are you, um…”

“Mmm?” I manage a rumbled questioning, but she doesn’t continue.

More kissing as she scoots closer, trapping me between her hand and the damp silkiness of her panties. Her hips undulate, augmenting the movement of her hand, driving me half mad with need. I groan into her mouth, digging my fingers into the smooth, warm curve of her bottom cheeks.

She rises higher on her knees and presses herself against the head of my cock, rolling her hips. Her head drops back, and I unclasp her lacy pink bra and slide my hands into the cups from beneath, gently squeezing, thumbing the nipples. She sucks in a sharp gasp.

Suddenly I can feel there’s no fabric between us—she’s pulled her panties aside.

She’s hot and wet, bracing my cock hard in her fist and dragging it through her engorged labia, tormenting us both by flirting with penetration, pressing her entrance against me over and over, a few times enveloping me just a centimeter or two.

“I want…” she begins, her voice a cracked whimper. “Would it be bad? Are you clean? Like, have you, uh… Do you know if…”

“I’ve only been with you since February on Santorini,” I tell her through a volley of kisses.

I know it’s not a perfect answer, but it’s the best I can do, driven to the edge by her slick heat, the weight behind the way she’s balanced at the tip of my cock, ready to plunge down.

“But there are other concerns, yes?” I force myself to ask. “Pregnancy?”

I lightly pinch her nipples, and she cries out. I feel her opening clench against me. In this moment, no force of physics seems stronger than the need to fill her—it’s a boulder of arousal thundering downhill, obliterating every sensible concern in its path.

“It’s a safe time of the month,” she says.

The words are barely out when she sheaths me entirely, stopping at the base and dancing her hips side to side to emphasize how thoroughly we’re joined. Her eyes flutter open, and she fixes me with those soul-deep blue pools as she begins to move on me.

“Is it okay to not finish inside me?” she asks. “Just give me a warning.”

“Anything you like. God… Talia…”

She rides me, slowly at first, then more energetically.

Her hands roam, fingernails scraping my chest, pinching my nipples in reply when I squeeze hers.

I flip up the lace of her bra and pull her to my mouth, sucking and flicking until she loses herself entirely.

Breathy praise and pleading spills from her kiss-abraded pink lips as she bounces in my lap shamelessly.

The car is a symphony of wantonness—the sound of our flesh colliding, her wetness, and my gulping breaths as I try to hold back, sensing she’s near her peak.

“Talia,” I grit out, “it’s too good. I can’t…”

“Yesyesyes… I… I need it,” she says between gasps.

“Come for me again, kleine Hexe. Let go and give me everything.”

Her arms shoot behind herself, bracing both hands on my knees. She stops moving up and down, tilting her hips to drag her clit against me, her throat opening in an uncharacteristic wail of surrender as her tight pussy tremors almost violently with her bliss.

I don’t want to diminish her moment, but the intensity of her response spurs my own, and I feel molten energy gather, ready to overtake me.

“You should move—oh God, it’s now or never, Talia.” My jaw clenches and my hands drop to her waist, encouraging her to lift up and off.

Instead she throws her arms around my neck and grinds down hard in my lap. “All of it, please,” she pants against my neck. “I want to keep you. Fill me up…”

My teeth grit hard as I’m dashed by the wave, crying out in shock as much as ecstasy.

This is right, this is right… it’s perfect. Exactly where I need to be , tumbles through my barely coherent brain. The flood of heat seems endless, my cock an earthquake of tribute to my desire for this woman.

“ Yes ,” she murmurs against my neck, fingers combing into the damp hair at the nape of my neck. “All for me. You’re mine… I’m keeping you.”

When she pulls back, we study each other with mingled seriousness and joy. I draw a stray lock of hair away from her lips, then kiss her.

“I hope we won’t regret that,” I confess.

“Sorry I didn’t exactly consult you about the changeup,” she says with a wince. “At first I just didn’t want to get the rental car messy. But…” She hides against the crook of my shoulder again. “I think also I just needed that.”

“Technically, the ‘please’ made it a question,” I say with an indulgent smile. “I could have said no, but I wanted it too. Welcomed the moment.” I smooth a hand down her back in desultory strokes.

She squeezes my cock, almost like a reassuring hug, and I’m so happy to still be inside her. I never want to leave.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” she assures me. “I’m regular as clockwork, and two days from my next period. We’re good.”

I hold back my lovesick reply, only thinking it: We are good. Together.

But trailing in on the tail of the thought, I worry how long I have until this sandcastle is dashed away.