Long Ball(64)

The elevator is fast enough to make us both laugh with the rush it gives, sending our internal organs swooping toward the floor, but it only lasts for a minute. Over ninety floors up, shadows leave slashes of darkness that swallow strips of the light floor. A thin haze separates the light blue sky from the city below, but the sun blazes brilliantly through the oddly shaped windows that go from floor to ceiling and then some.

There’s no one else inside except for the operator. I hold my hands out dramatically. “Welcome to Tilt. Heard of it?”

Dylan smirks and removes his sunglasses. “It sounds like a bad club name. Drink enough tequila and the floor—”

“—tilts. Clever.”

“I like how we have the place to ourselves.”

The heat in his teal gaze gives me way too many ideas, so I take a few steps toward the window, reading from my phone as he follows. “Safely holding up to eight visitors at a time, Tilt offers unique views from one thousand feet up. It will change the way you see Chicago—forever.”

“I haven’t seen enough of Chicago to form an opinion, but whatever, I’m game. What…oh.” He steps forward through one empty line-up, framed by red velvet ropes.

It’s an additional charge to tilt, but I happily hand my money over, eager to challenge myself with something new.

Dylan touches my forearm, sending tingles up my shoulder. “Hang on a sec.” He heads to the operator and talks to him for a second. Turning back to the south facing window, I keep my gaze level, not wanting to look down until we’ve tilted and I can take in the full experience all at once. This was my idea, and I don’t want to be a wimp, but holy shit, we’re a thousand feet up and about to tip thirty degrees over the street.

The steel handles on either side of the window are warm from the sun and I grip them tightly.

“You ready?”

I startle at the sound of Dylan’s voice behind me, and crane my neck around to look at him when he places his hands just above mine and brackets my feet with his, pressing himself to my back. “I think you’re supposed to stand at your own window.”

He nuzzles my neck. “I’m fine here.”

“What are you doing?” My voice comes out annoyingly breathless.

“Breaking the rules.”

His lips on my skin force my eyes shut as I turn inward with pleasure, awareness shrinking to every point of contact between us, wishing we were somewhere alone and naked, all too aware of the fact that last time we were in front of a window, he was inside me.

Dylan rests his chin on my shoulder, face gently touching mine. “Rachel. Open your eyes.”

I didn’t even feel the floor move. Dylan’s already tilted my world and I’m not sure I want it to go back to seeing it how it was.

But I open my eyes. Everything is tiny below us; the city seems to curve at the edge like we’re staring down at a snow globe with no water, no snowflakes. A world is rushing by beneath our feet, completely unaware of us. My hands tighten on the handles, from excitement, not fear. Maybe it’s because of the way I want the scruffy badass pressed up against me, but right now, in this moment, nothing is scary except the thought of quietly going back to my quiet apartment alone.

“It’s amazing up here.”

The last thing on my mind is the view. “Yeah.” I nestle closer to him, grinding my ass against him, unable to stop even when he hisses air through his teeth and his cock grows hard between us. What’s he doing to me? How is he killing all sense of propriety and self-control?

“Come with me.” He seizes my hand and tugs me through the exit just as a crowd of people walk onto the deck to see Tilt. The operator’s busy taking cash from the new group to see us go through the door.

No alarm sounds, but it’s an emergency exit leading to a stairwell. “We shouldn’t—”

He shuts me up with his lips on my mouth and his hand under my skirt, between my legs, stroking me through my already wet panties. Then he’s thrusting a finger inside.

He swallows my gasp, and pulls back with a nip to my lower lip. “I need to taste you.”

Reason permeates the haze, a tiny pinprick of light through heavy velvet curtains of need. “We shouldn’t.”

His knees nudge my feet apart and he pushes me back so I’m leaning against the wall. “You’re right. We really shouldn’t.” Hot breath hits my inner thigh as he throws one of my legs over his shoulder and tugs my panties to the side. “You’re killing me with this little sweater and sensible shoes and soaking wet *. Such a contradiction.” With an agonizingly light touch, he strokes my cleft. “But you taste so f*cking good, Rachel.” He swirls his tongue around my clit. “Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.”

A thin moan sneaks past my lips. God, anyone could walk up these stairs; the operator has to have noticed we disappeared. How long until he comes in and busts us? We need to stop, I need to tell him to stop.

My hips rebel and urge Dylan to go faster, my hands wind into his hair and despite every ounce of common sense screaming at me to stop and cover up, I f*ck his face, grinding hard against the lapping of his tongue, that sexy, smirking mouth sucking me closer and closer to the edge of a place I’ve never been, writhing with adrenaline and knowing it’s wrong but helpless to stop.

Feels. So. Good.

He curls two fingers against my inner walls, pulsing against that spot right there.