Page 12

Raven

S till. Here.

Now that I’ve finally pushed my way to the forefront and have control of both body and brain, I’m going to make sure that I’m the one who stays in control.

I sweep Tarynn into my arms, bend her backwards, and kiss her like in those old black and white photos. People hoot and cheer as they walk past. I don’t stop. She grasps my face and hair, tugging until it burns, pulling me closer.

All the things that I could do to her swell inside of me like a tide. I’ve been longing to touch her, to feel her smooth, soft skin. I know her scent now. The taste of her petal soft lips. The sound of her little whispers of pleasure that she feeds me from her tongue.

Tarynn and all that makes her who she is, no longer belongs solely to Crow.

I should shove the asshole possessive thoughts aside. She doesn’t need to go from being dominated by her parents to being controlled by me. She wants to her own woman, as she should.

“Food,” I sputter, trying to act normal. Trying to act like Crow . She stares back at me with glazed, blown eyes, but on her face is a look of utter contentment. For me . I put that there. Not Crow. He can fuck off. He can stay gone. “You need something to eat. Immediately.”

“You just want to make sure I’m not drunk. The food will ruin the buzz.”

“I made a promise that I’d take care of you.”

She frowns. “To who?”

Fuck. “To… myself. And to you.”

“I never asked you to do that.”

I wrap my arm around her shoulders. She’s not frail, but she is so much smaller than I am. That old protective urgency twists and burns like vines inside of me. I wait for Crow’s voice, for his feelings, for his dominance to come cutting through, but there’s nothing. He’s so firmly in the background that right now, it feels like it’s just me.

It would be easy to revel in that sensation, but all my senses are already consumed with the woman pressed up against my side. I’ve never known anything like this. I get why Crow couldn’t stop once he’d started, and why he started in the first place.

“What you need is one of those oversized pretzels with mustard.”

She scrunches up her nose. “The only thing mustard belongs on is wieners of alternating varieties.”

Because mentally, I’m ten, I snicker. She throws back her head and laughs too. She’s so beautiful and carefree, the lights of the city reflecting on her face in a glorious array of colors. Something pulses deep inside of me that is more than base, animal attraction.

“Please just eat something. Anything. If you want to maintain your buzz, you can do that later, at the club.”

“We’re really going?”

“I said we would. I keep my word.” Despite Crow’s endless accusations, that’s important to me.

“Fine. Get me the pretzel.”

Two giant pretzels later, mine with mustard, hers with cheese, eaten standing on the sidewalk, we find ourselves in the backseat of a cab, enroute to the club. I asked the driver for the best of whatever was open on a Sunday night.

I can’t help but feel a small twinge of horror over Tarynn’s obvious excitement. I’m leading her straight into corruption and that doesn’t feel like keeping her safe. At the same time, I know that she deserves the freedom to have her own experiences.

I feel almost obligated to give her some of that long overdue freedom.

Why?

I suppose for the same reasons that Crow offered those lessons after he initially said no. Why he couldn’t stop himself from bringing Tarynn straight to his inner sanctum, why he had to rescue her and why he wanted to do this for her.

Because she’s enchanting. Thrilling. Funny. Tender, nurturing, caring, and at the same time, nonjudgmental. He felt something in her that matched something in him, an emptiness that I’ve only ever added to instead of filled because he won’t let me. Maybe I feel some of that too. It could be a spillover of his emotions, but I don’t think so. More like an affirmation of my own.

“Do you have any siblings?” Tarynn asks, surprising me.

No one has ever asked me about my life. I’ve never been allowed out long enough for anything other than the fulfillment of carnal urges and occasional bursts of violence. It hits me hard that I’ve never had a real conversation with anyone other than Crow before.

“A twin brother.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s complicated. He’s of the same opinion as my parents. That I’m troubled and trouble. I felt alone growing up. I didn’t have to and neither did C- err, Adam, but that’s how it went.”

Her eyes shine like I’ve just granted her the world with that information. She’s looking at me the same way she looked out the window of the first can be we got into. “I always felt alone too,” she admits. “I had an imaginary friend, and she seemed so real to me, until my dad made me stop the nonsense about ghosts. They weren’t Christian.”

“Umm, excuse me? This from the religion who invented the terms Holy Ghost and Holy Spirit?”

She’s so lovely when she rolls her eyes. “I know. It’s all kind of silly, isn’t it?”

“Maybe he was secretly scared you were summoning demons.”

Bubbly laughter fills the car. Despite the pretzel, I can tell that she’s still buzzing from the vodka. It looks good on her though, softening all her features as she lets down her guard and casts away her worries and apprehensions.

Her hand trembles in the space between us and then covers the distance, her fingers edging up against mine.

“I wasn’t, and he knew that. It was wild, the things he wouldn’t let me do. It really made no sense at all.”

“Forgive me for saying it, but he sounds like a very small man. He reminds me so much of my parents. They’re exceptionally narrow minded.”

“Does Adam have a good relationship with them?” She turns to the window before turning back. “Sorry. That’s prying.”

“It’s fine.” I caress her knuckle with my index finger, heat swelling in my chest. “He tried for a while. In the end, it didn’t work. They drove him away. There’s no going back. We’re just not close either. Most of our life has been a competition. He’s always been the stronger one. He liked to push me out. He never listened to me. He assumed things about who and what I was, and he’s never got over that. He doesn’t know me, and he won’t even try.”

“I’d like to try.”

I don’t get sad. I’ve learned to harden myself off over the years, but my insides clench and grind like a faulty machine. All of that was the truth, and yet it was also all lies. She doesn’t know what she’s saying because there’s no way she can know.

I’m silent for just long enough, until the cab turns the corner and the lineup in front of the strip club reveals itself. Tarynn grasps my hand fully, her excitement renewed.

“I didn’t even know you could do this on a Sunday. It seems incredibly irreverent.”

“I guess in Vegas, anything is possible.”

I pay the driver then hold the door open for her. My hand immediately falls to the small of her back. It’s not just protective, it’s functional. I don’t want her to stumble or fall. I have no idea how many drinks she really had, or how they’re hitting her. She seems coordinated, but she’s also entirely uninhibited right now, and I’m not taking any chances.

The line moves surprisingly fast. I keep my hand at Tarynn’s back. She waits in eager silence, her body rigid with excitement. We only wait for fifteen minutes before we’re at the front. I pay our cover and as soon as we step through the door, we’re inundated with throbbing music. There are several stages, all on one side, chairs, tables, and booths on the other across from it.

I lead Tarynn straight to that area, away from the seats closest to the stage. Most of them are filled with men already. There’s no way I’m going to let her near any of those animals. They’re wild and rowdy, jostling each other, practically salivating over the naked and near naked girls writhing on the poles on stage.

The floor is practically gummy. I try not to notice the way my boot sticks. Tarynn’s entire attention is fixated on the stage. It’s a good thing I’m here to guide her, or she would have missed the few stairs up to the raised area at the back.

The booths are mostly full. It’s busy here tonight, as the lineup indicated.

We find two free black club chairs at the very edge of the fray. I stare at them dubiously before I allow Tarynn to sink into one.

As soon as we’re seated, we’re immediately accosted by several different waitresses, trying to get us to order drinks.

Tarynn wants a vodka cranberry. I wish I could pay the waitress to make it entirely cranberry with just a hint of alcohol, but I decide that one drink won’t hurt. That pretzel I watched Tarynn consume was large and doughy. It should soak up some of the alcohol.

I know I need to keep my head, but I also want to keep Crow from shoving me aside. This is my night. If all I get are these few hours, I want them to be mine and mine alone. I want them to count.

I ignore the thick feeling in my throat and order a double shot of whiskey, neat.

Thankfully, when the waitress returns, Tarynn sips at her drink. I down mine and order another. Crow’s refusal to ever drink gives our body a fairly low tolerance. Another double and my head is on fire, my body nicely languid. I wave off the offer for anything further. I’m fine, at least for the next while. I need to stay in control in order to make sure I can keep Tarynn safe, all while pushing Crow further and further down inside of us.

After the drinks, I follow Tarynn’s eyes. They’re so wide and green. She seems captivated and amazed by what she’s seeing. I see a place that is mostly a facade, entirely put together of plastic and pretense, the people included.

Tarynn, with her natural beauty and her radiant kindness, is the most beautiful woman here.

We’ve only been here for fifteen minutes when the first dancer walks by. She stops in front of us, eyes scanning up and down me before moving on to Tarynn. “Do you want a dance, sweetheart?”

It’s unclear which of us she’s addressing. My automatic response is to shake my head firmly but in a way I figure is polite. Behind the dark haired dancer, two topless women with G-string panties sparkling in the muted lights, lead a single man towards the back private rooms.

Tarynn’s grin is instant. “Yes!” She goes to leap up, but the dancer, wearing a slinky black sequin dress that barely covers her nipples and sweeps down into the world’s shortest skirt, automatically straddles her, pinning her to the chair.

“Oh my god,” Tarynn yelps. Her hands fly up to latch onto the woman’s hips. “Is- this okay?” she whispers.

The dancer nods, undulating against Tarynn. “It’s fine, honey. Is this your first time in a club?”

Tarynn bites down on her bottom lip and nods fiercely.

The dancer laughs, not unkindly. “I’ll make sure you have a great time. You’re so beautiful, darling. Have you ever touched a woman before?”

“Sure,” Tarynn responds, but then she understands. “Err… no. Not like that.”

“You just sit back and enjoy this. You can close your eyes or keep them open. Whatever you want to do is fine. Your hands are fine right there on my hips. You can get close, but don’t taste. Is that something you’d like to do?”

Tarynn’s head bobs wildly again. “Yes!”

She has zero pretense and zero chill. It’s so fucking hot.

My brain goes to that dark place while I watch the dancer gyrate her hips over Tarynn’s lap. She leans in close enough that her huge breasts are right near Tarynn’s face. I watch as Tarynn’s head falls back, her lips parted in the pleasure of new discovery.

It’s not a far leap to picture her that way on my lap, hovering over my hard cock. I can’t stop the cascade that rushes through my brain. I think about all the things I’d like to do to her. Wide and varied, dark and depraved.

I want her on her knees, begging for my cock. She’d take me out eagerly, stuff as much of me as she could in her mouth until she gags. She’d love it. She’d try so hard, drool pooling at the corners of her mouth and running down her chin as I claim her beautiful throat. She’d swallow like a good girl, breathing as I coach her. She’d be drenched, dripping down her thighs, before she’d pull back and plead with me to come in her mouth. She’d swallow every last drop, licking the salt of me from her lips. I’d tackle her into a new position, letting her ride my face. I’d fill her virgin pussy with my cock, and she’d love it. I’d make myself so slick and drenched with her juices right before I claimed her tight asshole. She’d hold nothing back. She’d scream and moan and writhe in ecstasy. She’d come with three of my fingers in her pussy, so full that she’d feel me for days. She’d scream my name and—

My. Name.

She wouldn’t scream my name.

She doesn’t know I exist.

She doesn’t know that I want her in every way. I want to protect her, to know her, to hear her laugher and her throaty moans of pleasure. I want everything and yet, I desire the simplest thing of all. Time. Existence. The one thing that none of us are guaranteed, but me most of all.

I’m wrenched from being up in my head as the dancer climbs off Tarynn. That’s my cue to pay her, which I do. I peel off a couple hundred dollars and hand them over discreetly.

I expect Tarynn to go back to watching the stage and the goings on around us with wide eyes, but those beautiful verdant orbs lock on my face. They narrow, heavy lidded. She rakes them over my face, then back up, locking our gazes as she slides down slightly in the chair and opens her legs.

It’s light and shadow in here. Her panties are black. I can’t quite tell if they’re wet or not. I can’t smell her.

As soon as her hand trails down her waist, past that scrap of leather and plays along her upper thighs, there’s nothing else going on in here. There’s just her and her fingers, edging further and further up, painting an invisible path that I want to trace with my lips and tongue, straight to her center.

She runs her finger down her panties. They must be cotton. And they must also be soaked. They cling to the shape of her, her finger tracing the outline before it sweeps up and she circles her clit.

Her head falls back, her eyes close, her face pinched in concentration. She’s not at all aware of her surroundings. This is a show, just for me. I’m the one who eyes the area. If a single other man is looking this way, I swear that I’ll gouge his damn eyes out.

No one is paying any attention to us over in the corner. The perks of topless waitresses, dancers working the floor, and the acrobatics of the naked women up on stage.

I scoot forward in my chair, taking it with me, jerking forward until our knees are almost touching. I lean in and say darkly, just for Tarynn to hear. “Put your fingers under your panties. Slip them inside yourself. I want you to tell me how tight and wet you are. Coat your fingers in your arousal and let me see.”

Her hand freezes. “Someone will notice!” She sounds scandalized, but she doesn’t look it. She looks intrigued. Starving to be naughty.

“Not if you’re discreet.”

Her eyes trace the same path mine just followed. She angles her body directly into my line of sight and parts her legs even further. She keeps her skirt from riding up and uses it to hide what she’s doing beneath. I watch her fingers disappear under the black fabric. I flick my eyes up to her face. She’s watching me, focused and intense. I watch her right back. Neither of us breaks, not even when she gasps and makes the softest little whimper.

It goes straight to my cock. I’m the one angling myself so that no one can get a view of the massive boner I have going on in my jeans. I reach down and adjust myself, tucking my cock up towards my waistband.

Tarynn’s eyes widen slightly as she watches me do it.

Something heady flashes in them.

She’s right. This is what she does to me. Makes my cock kick and weep, makes me want to blow straight into my boxers.

She chooses that minute to remove her hand, fingers glistening in the low light. I capture her wrist and bring her fingers to my lips. I suck them into my mouth, laving at her digits with my tongue, sucking at them, savoring her delicious honey until her fingers are clean. I pop them out of my mouth. They’re soaked with my saliva now.

I want to leave right fucking now, but I don’t want to ruin the night for Tarynn. If the heady expression on her face, half dazed and half lust, and her blown pupils are any indication, she might want to get out of here as badly as I do.

“I think I might want to go,” she says, voice thick but not slurred. Not from the alcohol.

“We can leave.”

“We can always go back out again.”

“Out again?”

I could fall and die, crash and burn, in her sinful smile. I want to taste her lips again. Tease them and claim them. Bruise them until they’re swollen and marked from my kisses.

“I want to go back to the hotel.”

She stands abruptly and takes my hand, trying to haul me up. When she said she wanted to go, she meant now.

I get to my feet and put my hand where it belongs, on the small of her back, to guide her out. I make sure no one bumps her or comes near.

Outside, I suppose the night has cooled, but the hot summer heat of Vegas is far warmer than Hart feels even on its warmest day. Hart is all cloying humidity and sticky summers. This heat practically shimmers, even in the dark.

There’s still a line. If anything, it’s only grown. For Vegas, the night is young yet, and with other clubs not open tonight, I’m sure this one will be going strong right until closing time—that’s if it ever closes.

There aren’t any taxis waiting. I suppose that they won’t start coming until later. It’s no matter. I can call for one.

I get my hand in my back pocket to pull out my phone, but that’s all I accomplish before I’m nearly tugged off my feet. Tarynn has my hand and she’s pulling me with all her strength, over to the corner of the building. The club is on a corner lot, with no other buildings around. It’s surrounded by parking lots on all three sides. The other buildings down the street are dark though, and the streetlights don’t reach around to the side.

As soon as we’re out of sight, she wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me into her. She falls against the brick building, looping one leg up and around behind mine. She arches into me, slamming her breasts into my chest, placing hot, sloppy, delirious kisses over my chin until she reaches my lips.

It’s the hottest onslaught. I feel like I’m in a fever dream.

“Crow,” she moans, nipping at my lips, trying to entice me into losing control.

Spoiler alert—I’m more than halfway there already.

But Crow? That just won’t fucking do. I can’t very well get her to call me Raven. I turn my face to her ear, biting lightly at the lobe. She shivers, her hips bucking up into my hard cock, still trapped in the waistband of my pants. I want to grind into her. I want to free it, tear her panties right off, and give her every thick inch.

“Owen.”

Her hands twist into my hair, nails digging into the back of my neck and base of my skull. “Owennnnn,” she purrs, dragging out the syllables.

I’ve given my name to one person in my life. Crow. No one else has ever known it and they certainly wouldn’t haven’t whispered it like Tarynn just did.

I want to shove her against the wall, lift up her skirt, and bury my tongue inside her pussy until she’s a screaming mess.

“I want you to unravel me,” she begs, her words turning me inside out, getting into my brain and making me dizzy.

“I can’t do this if you’re too drunk to fully know what you’re doing.”

“I’m just buzzed. The pretzel worked its magic.”

She unwinds one hand from my hair to take mine, twisting our fingers together. She brings it up, setting it right on the gaping neckline of her shirt, above her breast. So help me fucking god, I want to take that sweet round orb in my hand. I want to shove that bra and shirt aside and close my lips around her nipple, bite and suckle her as her legs grow unsteady.

I lift my hand instead, brushing my knuckles down her cheek and lifting her jaw. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I know that if I don’t like something, you’ll stop. You don’t have to worry. I might be a pastor’s daughter, but I’ve been reading smutty books online for years. My parents would have dropped dead if they knew about it. I’m also a med student so… there’s literally nothing that I don’t know about and haven’t seen. Also? I’ve masturbated before. Probably going to hell for it, but there it is.”

I let out a growl at her thinking that she’s done anything wrong and claim her lips without holding myself back. It’s too rough. Punishing. I need to pull back or stop, but she claws me closer, kissing me with so much passion and eagerness that it doesn’t matter that she’s not experienced. She’s a fast learner and I think her lips are perfect. I like the way she follows my lead, opening her mouth for me, scraping my lips with her teeth after I do it to her, gliding her tongue along my bottom lip and then thrusting it into my mouth.

I slow it down before both of us burn up out here at the side of this building. There’s no way I’m going to let her first real experience with sex be outside of some seedy club where anyone could see us if they peeked into the dark.

My plan is to break the kiss, get her into a cab, and get her straight back to the hotel where I’ll do whatever she asks me to do.

It’s a good plan, but I didn’t account for the fact that I can’t stop kissing her.

We’re an explosion in the dark, and that’s before she grasps my wrist and puts my hand on her thigh.

I can’t deny her. I move my fingers up, stroking over the softest skin I have ever felt in my entire life. She moans into my mouth and runs her fingers through my hair. I’m the one who likes it long. Crow couldn’t give a shit. I’m surprised he never cut it just to spite me. Maybe secretly, he likes it that way too.

Yes, we have that. Secrets. From each other.

Tarynn’s hips arch off the brick wall and into my hand. She rides into me so hard that she traps it between our bodies.

I let my fingers play over the edge of her panties before I give her the flat of my hand to grind against. Cupping her, I realize that she’s soaked right through the cotton fabric.

She tears away, whimpering and mewling through kiss-swollen lips. Her hair isn’t nearly messed up enough. I should fix that. She’s breathing raggedly. “Yes. Please. Put your fingers inside of me, Owen. I want to feel you.”

I want that too.

I want to get on my knees, shove her panties aside, and put my tongue inside her tight heat.

I tease her just enough, stroking her over the wet fabric, but I also get my phone out of my back pocket. This time, I look up cabs in Vegas and hit the first option. I give the name of the club, and the dispatcher says that she’ll have a car there in under two minutes.

I have to tear away. Tarynn swipes her hands through her own hair, practically grinding her teeth in frustration.

I tug her skirt down gently, straighten her tank top out, and smooth my palms over the hair she’s just mussed. “Not here,” I say, like I have all the answers and wisdom in the world.

What a fucking joke. My dick is so hard that I’m going to need anti-erection pills soon.

I twist our fingers together, aligning our palms and walk with Tarynn to the front. Headlights sweep up the street and a white cab with another vibrant ad printed along the side of it pulls up.

I hold the door for her, make sure she buckles herself in, then slip into the other side. I give the driver the name of our hotel and sit back for the longest ride of my life.

I thought I’d just die a little, melting down in my own skin, my dick throbbing into infinity, my balls about to burst like overripe fruits, but nope.

Fuck me, somehow I never saw Tarynn coming.

In the dark of the backseat, to the accompaniment of the token Vegas ads that play over the car’s speakers, her hand steals onto my lap. She finds my painful erection, tucked up because it’s the only way I can fucking walk or sit or function right now. She seems confused about the direction of it for a second, but trials her fingers over my black jeans, exploring the length of me.

A little hiss fills up the car as she realizes just how long I am.

And then the whole flat of her hand comes down.

Hard.

I fucking jack forward in the seat, slamming my hand over hers and faking a sneeze to excuse the motion so the driver doesn’t look behind him or tilt his mirror to figure out what the fuck we’re doing back here.

She doesn’t ease up. She rubs me through my jeans, stroking along my whole length. It’s agony. At this rate, if I came from what she’s doing, I’d paint my own chest with an explosion of come.

I try to breathe evenly and give nothing away.

She tortures me all the way back to the hotel and as we pull up, gives me a knowing smile before ejecting herself out of her own door, tossing her hair over her shoulder, and putting both hands on her hips to wait for me.

I get her message loud and clear.

Payback’s a nasty bitch.