Page 13

13

JULY 5, 2016 (SIX YEARS AGO)

Sawyer

“ So, Haskell from Northern England, you gonna let me hang out here for a while after I finish playing doctor with you?”

Kash hissed over the link. “Seriously, bro? That’s the line you’re going to use?”

Sawyer studiously ignored the voice in his ear that had never turned off. Just because his brother Kash wasn’t physically present didn’t mean that he was cutting off his lifeline to safety. He just hadn’t told Haskell that the man was listening in and using a drone to inform Sawyer when to cut left and dodge right to avoid the Policia Local, who had been much too close several times during their nighttime flight through the forest. After all, he had to use everything in his arsenal to impress her.

His body language may have projected his focus was on her ankle, but Sawyer was incredibly good at focusing on things that he didn’t appear to be focusing on. He’d been fooling everyone for a long time. In this case, he was cataloging Haskell’s responses to what he was doing. Her mouth winced once or twice when he touched her foot, but when he slid his fingers up to her ankle? The wince made it to her eyes. And when he brushed the top of the ankle bone? She inhaled. She was trying not to telegraph her pain, but she wasn’t fooling him.

“Do I have a choice?” She huffed. “It’s not like I could kick you out with this ankle.”

“No, probably not,” he agreed. Sawyer removed the ice bag and gently ran his fingers over her skin, making sure it was dry. “Okay, before I wrap your ankle, you probably should take off these pants.”

She lowered her chin and raised her eyebrows at him.

He mimicked her face. “Will you be able to get these off over a towel-wrapped ankle?”

She sighed in exasperation, her head dropping back against the top of the futon. “No.”

She’s adorable when she pouts.

He stood up, careful to cradle the injured foot, and set it on the seat of his chair. Once inside the walls of her bedroom, the soft glow of a ceramic lamp lit the bedside table, allowing him just enough light to see the furniture. He went to the dresser and began opening drawers.

The first drawer revealed very utilitarian undergarments. Then he thought about the practicality of the items.

Probably very uncomfortable to crawl through small spaces wearing a string up your ass crack.

“Underwear is overrated anyway,” he muttered to himself as he closed the drawer.

“Are you pawing through her panties?” Kash’s voice came over his earbuds.

“No, I’m not pawing through them,” Sawyer replied.

“Sounds like you are,” his brother grumbled .

“Jealous?” Sawyer smiled.

Opening the second drawer, he found a few long-sleeved shirts and leggings, all black.

“Single-minded little kitten, isn’t she?”

“What?” Kash asked. “What did you find?”

“Nothing to get excited about. They’re clearly her work clothes. All black, totally body-covering, and meant for hiding in the darkness.”

He closed the drawer and opened the third one, where he found two pairs of jeans and a couple of tops that would allow her to blend in with the tourists visiting the town during the daytime.

The fourth and final drawer revealed several too-large T-shirts and flannel pajama bottoms.

“A-ha!” he exclaimed softly. “Her bedtime clothes. Not very adventurous, is she?”

“Sawyer, you’re killing me,” Kash groaned.

“Relax, big bro. She dresses like a teenage boy. Very punk and grunge, actually.”

“Does she look like a teenage boy?”

Sawyer snorted. “Fuck, no! Four foot ten, a hundred pounds maybe, and all waifish cuteness. She’s got a few tats that I haven’t seen up close, and she’s pierced. Mop of springy blonde curls that would make Shirley Temple envious, vivid blue eyes. Like a smokin’ hot Tinkerbell.” He adjusted his growing hard-on.

Kash snorted. “Totally not your type.”

Sawyer let the comment pass.

“She doesn’t sound impressed by you.”

“She’s a hissy little kitten. She’ll come around,” Nemo assured him.

“We don’t have time for you to get your dick wet. ”

“There’s always time for that, bro. Besides, I need to lie low for a few hours, so I need something to do.”

A quick tap to his earbud muted him from his brother. He needed to be able to hear Kash if things got dicey. However, if things proceeded as Sawyer hoped, there was no need for his brother to hear them. From the second she’d fallen into his arms, and he’d seen those wide, sparkly blue eyes, he knew he’d be trying to get some sexy time in with the little cat burglar. The sass coming out of her mouth only confirmed it. The girls who were willing to go toe-to-toe with him and refuse to put up with his shit were always the hottest.

He pulled out a Bow Wow Wow T-shirt and a pair of green and black sleep pants. Sliding the drawer closed, he went back out to the main room. “Okay, tiny. Let’s get you into something more comfortable.”

She rolled her eyes as she took the clothing from him. “I’m totally capable of changing my own clothes.”

“Well, get to it then.”

Gingerly, she lifted her leg off the chair and brought her foot to the floor, hissing when the dead weight hit her ankle. She unbuckled the belt at her waist and threw it over to the end of the futon. Next, she reached for the waist of her form-fitting pants and stopped. Her eyes bored into his. “Do you mind?”

He grinned at her and winked. “Nope.”

“Turn around.”

“Tiny, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen hundreds of times already.”

“I bet,” she muttered under her breath. “Please?” she asked sarcastically.

“Since you asked so nicely.” He turned slowly and showed her his back. Behind him, he heard her struggling to slide the pants over her ass and down her legs while still sitting. With every rustle of her clothing, he imagined her shedding the material. His mouth began to salivate. His little Tinkerbell was going to be fit and tight in all the best ways.

He knew the exact moment the pants were down around her ankles and that they were stuck. She couldn’t bend enough to get them off without feeling pain. He almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Was he being a dick?

Yes, but I regret nothing.

He turned his head in profile to her. “Need help?”

“No, I don’t need any help. You’ve helped enough by being the reason I’ve got a sprained ankle to begin with.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t trip you. That was the tree root.”

He listened to her struggle a few moments longer before he spun around. “Stubborn little pixie.” He got down on one knee and gently eased his fingers between her ankle and the pants, guiding them over the rapidly swelling and bruising joint. “There. Your virtue is still intact.”

He stopped in his tracks. More saliva spurted into his mouth. His heart stuttered. His eye twitched.

Those legs!

Inside his head, he groaned. He knew it. Hotter than hot. She might be tiny, but Sawyer knew a beautiful set of legs when he saw them. They were toned like a gymnast and made her short form look long-legged, beginning at the bottom of a pair of plain white, but strangely sexy, boy shorts and continuing down to the tiniest feet he’d ever seen—size five by his guess—where they boasted pink sparkly polish on the toes.

Mentally, he gathered himself back together with an internal shake of his head. Grabbing the flannel pajama pants, he shook them out so they unfolded and slid them over her legs to just over the knees. “Lift,” he ordered.

Haskell bunched her hands into fists and used them to push herself an inch or so off the futon so that he could slide them over her ass and up to her waist. The action brought him within an inch or so of her mouth.

Their eyes locked.

Fuck! Eyes really can sparkle like sapphires!

He cleared his throat, then reached for the T-shirt as he stood.

Haskell dropped her gaze and began to pull at the sleeves of her long-sleeved black T-shirt.

Sawyer wanted to look away, but the devil on his shoulder wouldn’t allow it. Holding the shirt out in front of him, he turned his head as if to give her privacy, but out of his peripheral vision, he watched her change. The plain, simple sports bra she wore was no better on his heart rate than the tiny boy shorts, and he already was envisioning being able to get those entire small but perfect tits in his mouth.

Yeah, there was definitely a little time to fuck around.

Once she was settled, he sat back down on the chair he’d vacated earlier, took her leg back into his lap, and reached over and grabbed one of the towels, unfolded it, then refolded it in half horizontally. “This might hurt a little,” he warned.

Using one of the towels from the kitchen, he began to wrap her ankle. “You’ll need to stay off this for a day or two. Ice it. Keep it elevated.”

Haskell was silent as he continued to wrap her up. He heard a hint of guilt when she quietly said, “Thank you for helping me tonight. I interrupted you and kept you from what you were doing. You could have left me stranded tonight. Multiple times. But you didn’t.” Her eyes searched his face. “Why? You could have been caught.”

“Dunno. At first, it was reflex. Someone falls, you try to catch them.” He shrugged. “Seemed rude to leave you behind. As for interrupting, I didn’t leave completely empty-handed.” He knotted the ends of one of the towel strips, holding the larger towel in place to serve as her wrap bandage. “So, what were you doing in the air duct?”

“Practicing,” she mumbled. “That museum has some unique physical challenges. I use it as a practice exercise.”

Sawyer began to put away all of the items he had been working with. When he returned to her on the futon, he swiped the makeshift ice bag from the floor and scooped her up in his arms. He expected her to squawk and put up a fight, but surprisingly, she merely put her arms around his neck and watched him as intently as he watched her while carrying her.

Inside her room, he set her down on the bed, her back to the headboard. Grabbing the extra pillow, he slid it under her ankle as gently as he could. Then he rounded the bed and threw himself on the other side, lying flat, his hands laced behind his head.

He could feel her stare on him as he lay there in silence. After several minutes, he turned his head to her. “What?”

“You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.”

“How do you figure?”

“You’ve muscled your way into my apartment, you’ve taken over first aid on my ankle, and now you’ve muscled your way into my bedroom.”

“And your bed, more specifically”—he winked—“but what’s your point?”

“Does this brazen attitude work for you?”

“I don’t hear you telling me to go.”

She turned her head and looked straight ahead, staring at the wall opposite her. “Would you go if I asked you to leave?”

“Do you want me to go?” he asked.

She glanced at her hands in her lap. “No,” she replied.

“What do you want, Haskell?”

The pause between them was heavy. “We shouldn’t,” she whispered .

He got up on his knees on the bed, then swung a leg over her outstretched ones so that he was straddling her. Careful not to put his weight on her legs, he cupped her face in his hands, tilting it up to look him in the eye. “Oh, we so should.”

When she didn’t protest, he dipped his mouth to hers. Her response was immediate—a groan and her hands fisted his shirt, her mouth pressing hungrily to his. At first, his lips were a light touch to hers. When her eyelids fluttered closed on a soft moan, her mouth opened to him, and his tongue dipped inside to flick the tip against hers.

She tastes so fucking good! Like the sweetest sugar.

One hand slid through her curls and gripped the back of her skull to keep her in place. The other hand slid down to her shoulder, curled under her arm, and then splayed against her back in an attempt to pull her as tight to him as possible. The delicate contact, the tentative touch of his tongue to hers, and then its retreat, was ramping up his heartbeat. His cock ached as it filled with blood, pressing tightly against his pants, straining to reach her.

He ended the kiss, and she whimpered at the loss of contact. Forehead to forehead, their breaths soughing in and out of each other’s mouths, their eyes opened to gaze at the other. “Sawyer,” she whispered.

“Yes, tiny?”

“I… I’ve never…”

He felt his heart stop for the briefest of moments, and he sucked in air. “Never?”

She shook her head, her eyes sliding away from him in embarrassment.

He was stunned. He’d never been someone’s first, and he wondered if maybe he should stop. However, his mouth moved before his brain finished thinking it through, his voice low and soothing. “Look at me, Haskell. ”

When she ducked her head to further avoid his gaze, the hand that had been cradling her head palmed it with a tighter grip, tugging her curls at the roots to force her eyes to meet his.

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “We go only as far as you want, but if I don’t get to kiss you again, I might just die of grief.”

Her snort and eye roll showed him just how much she didn’t believe that. “I’m guessing you’ll survive.”

He gave a minuscule shake of his head. “Need that sweet taste. You’re sugar that melts on my tongue.”

He touched his lips to hers again. Dropping his hands from her body was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but he knew he needed to get her out of her head, and the best way to do that was to give her something better to focus on. He backed away for just a moment and grabbed the bottom of his long-sleeved T-shirt from his pants. Reaching behind him, he pulled at the collar and brought it over his head. He dropped it next to them on the bed.

Sawyer heard her sharp intake of breath as she took in his chest and abs. Her pupils dilated, want and need flooding them.

Cool fingertips tentatively traced the ink that covered his chest. It was a mosaic of items. Things that looked like paintings, statues, jewelry, and even money. “You know, it’s probably not a good idea to keep track of your thefts on your body. It’s a bit like standing under a neon sign that screams ‘Burglar Here,’” she teased.

He grinned. “What’s life without a little risk?”

The fingers cataloging each separate item slid straight down his abdomen, drawing along the ridges of his defined six-pack of muscles. She followed the center line to the waist of his pants. When his belt stopped her progress, she looked up at him.

“It really is okay, Haskell. We don’t have to.”

“No,” she disagreed. “It isn’t. I want you. It makes zero sense. You’re a total pain in my ass, but… I’ve never wa nted something so much in my life. I just—Kiss me, Sawyer,” she begged.

His hands framed her face again, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones as he moved his mouth expertly over hers. When he came up for air, they both were breathing even harder. “Don’t think about anything else. Just enjoy how good it feels.”

Her hands slid around his waist, palms spread wide, fingers pressing tight to his back. Her kiss became more self-assured, and her body arched to get closer to his.

Letting go of her and drawing his mouth away from hers, Sawyer slid off to her side. Careful not to jostle her ankle any more than he needed to, he pulled her body so that she was lying down. Resting on the elbow closest to her, he hovered over her prone form. Tracing her perfect eyebrows and down the side of her face, he then ran his index finger across her bottom lip. Slight pressure separated it from its top mate, and he lowered his mouth to hers again.

“Let me love you, Haskell. Let me make you feel good.”

Without hesitation, this time, she answered, “Yes, Sawyer.”

The words were no more out of her mouth than he had rolled over on top of her, careful to only move the leg with the unwrapped ankle so that he could lie between her legs. Her face was framed between his forearms, his hands free to brush through her hair, his hips weighing heavy just below her core, holding her in place as if he thought she was going to suddenly change her mind and run away.

Looking down into her eyes, which were focused on his own, Sawyer realized that something was happening here that wasn’t normal. At the young age of twenty-five, he’d had a good number of partners already. His naturally given good looks made sure that he attracted a lot of female attention, and Sawyer had never been one to turn away anything freely offered. Looking down at Haskell right now, somehow, everything that was past meant nothing other than it led him to this moment of knowing how to please her. It mattered if this was perfect for her. Before, all he’d worried about was if he felt good and if his partner had an orgasm. But now? It mattered that not only did it feel good but that it was something she’d happily remember.

One last brush of his fingertips through her unruly curls, he held her head in his hands as his mouth lowered to hers. Just as his lips softly pressed against hers, his eyes closed at the sugary taste of her mouth. He hummed in pleasure at the taste. “Your mouth is so sweet. Like you coated it in sugar before kissing me. I love it,” he finished on a groan. He swiped his tongue across the lower lip. “Don’t get shy on me now. Let me in, pretty baby.”

Her mouth hesitantly opened, but once it did, her tongue immediately intertwined with his, and he felt her hands slide around his waist and up his back to pull him closer. Tilting his head to better seam his mouth over hers, his tongue continued long, languid strokes against hers. The sugary goodness on her lips continued inside her mouth, and Sawyer felt himself become instantly addicted to her taste.

With reluctance, he pulled his mouth from hers. A tiny sound of frustration came from Haskell, which he quickly dispelled with a kiss to her chin. Using his nose, he nudged her chin back so that her neck arched, and he left a series of kisses down her throat that straddled the line between a nibble and a nip. When he reached the hollow of her throat, his tongue snuck out between his lips and trailed upward to her chin. She shivered in his arms, and he felt her hips cant up instinctively to grind into his.

“Easy, pretty baby,” he soothed. “I’ll get there. No rush.”

He began to kiss down her throat again, but this time when he reached the hollow of her throat, he sucked lightly at the skin there. Not hard enough to leave a mark, but just enough that she’d feel the skin pull between his lips. Letting go of the skin, he lifted his hips off her body and gently slid farther down between her legs so that his mouth was level with her breasts. He palmed the right one while his mouth searched for her nipple on the left through her T-shirt. She again arched into his touch and lips.

A soft rumble came from the back of her throat. Sawyer chuffed against her skin, his mouth never leaving her body as he spoke. “Are you purring, kitty cat? Wait until I get my mouth and hands on your bare skin there.”

“Shut up and put up, burglar boy,” she groaned.

“My pleasure,” he murmured. His hands reached for the bottom of her T-shirt. “Help me out, tiny.” She lifted her hips and arched her back so that he could peel the shirt up and over her body and toss it over the side of the bed. His hands returned to the cotton sports bra remaining between them up top. He slid his fingers beneath the band, pushed it gently over her small breasts, then guided the material up and off her body. The bra dropped on top of her shirt. His fingers traced the ink on her bicep that he’d only gotten a glimpse of earlier when she’d changed her shirt. Four male images peered out of a tree, one at the top, the other three equidistant from each other on lower branches.

Her family tree, he guessed. He didn’t have much time to think about it because Haskell dragged her hands across his back, her nails scratching across his skin, making all thoughts disappear. “Fuck, yeah. Give me those claws, little kitty cat. I wanna feel them scraping my back, digging into my shoulders.”

Immediately, her arms moved up his shoulder blades and curled over his shoulders, her short nails carving crescent shape indentations into his skin. Her head raised off the pillow, her mouth pressing urgently to his, sliding her tongue between his lips and seeking out the depths of the cavern. He gladly met each stroke of her tongue, allowing her to control the kiss and following her lead .

His hands slid inside the waist of her flannel pajama pants, spanning her waist and hips, his thumbs caressing the skin just above the band. Halting their kisses momentarily, he urged, “Lift up again, pretty baby.” As her hips raised off the bed, his mouth went back to hers. However, his thumbs hooked the waistband and dragged them down past her ass and down her legs. Pulling his mouth from hers again, then kneeling between her parted legs, he eased the pants over her ankles and feet, trying not to disrupt her injury any more than necessary.

Bending at the waist, he brushed his lips against her stomach, then dragged his tongue across a tattoo of a comet that streaked across her belly. When he reached its fiery tail, he went straight down to trace her belly button. He swirled his tongue around it, tickling her. Her giggle was unexpected, as were the hands gently trying to push him away from the sensitive skin. “Ticklish much?” he teased. He darted his tongue out to circle around it again.

“Don’t! Stop!” she pushed out on a giggle again.

“Don’t stop? Okay.” He grinned as he purposely misunderstood her instruction, circling the skin one more time.

“Ahhhhhh!” she shrieked, laughter escaping.

I want to do that again sometime.

His brain stuttered for just a moment over the idea of doing this with her in the future. Sawyer had never fucked the same girl twice. Well… maybe multiple times in a single session, but never repeated after one encounter… But then her fingers were spearing his short hair, gripping it tightly, and working to pull his mouth up and away from her torso. When his laughing eyes met her sparkling ones, he promptly forgot what he’d just been thinking about.

He let his teasing smile turn naughty, and he got caught in her stare as he watched her fun-loving smile slowly fade and turn hungry. Index finger trailing lightly from the spot between her legs, he followed a path straight up the middle of the gusset of her panties and scraped a blunt nail in a circle over where her clit lay hidden. She shivered. Her lips parted, the small pink tip of her tongue unconsciously swiping between them.

He slid back down onto his stomach, hands sliding underneath her, lifting her ass off the bed, his mouth hovering over her panty-covered mound. Without looking away, he lowered his head to swipe his tongue along the same path his finger had just traversed. The tiny mewl and buck of her hips spurred him on. Her taste exploded on his tongue, even through the material. “If I take these off, tiny, you’re mine tonight.”

He saw a quick flash of panic in her gaze, but then it was replaced with her eyes fluttering closed, a moan, and a roll of her hips. Then she tensed. “I’m going to regret this, but don’t stop.”