Fake Empire(60)

In answer, she takes the condom from me, rips it open, and rolls it down my dick. Then she straddles my lap and sinks down. Her heavy exhale is half-whimper, half-moan as I fill her. I mentally recite every finding from the latest quarterly report to keep from immediately coming like a horny teenager. She’s wet and hot and Scarlett.

I let her control the pace. Let her take me deep and fast and frantic. Let her use me like a toy to get herself off. Part of me is pleased she wants me as much as I’ve been wanting her. Part of me is just caught off guard. I don’t give up control—during sex, when it comes to anything.

Except when it comes to her, apparently.

When Scarlett doesn’t care, she shuts down. Her desperate movements aren’t indifference. She wants this, and she’s showing me just how much. I trace the length of her throat with my tongue, tasting the hint of salt on her skin from our trip across the waves. She smells like lemon and something floral, almost sweet.

When I trail my tongue down between her breasts, she gasps and circles her hips. I grunt. “You’re close, Red. I can feel you clenching around me.” Wet, greedy sounds fill the room as she impales herself on me over and over again, chasing her release.

“Crew.” She says my name like a curse.

“Are you going to come on my cock, Red?”

Our lips meet in a dirty, messy kiss. And then she’s convulsing around me, making sounds that almost push me over the edge after her.

I flip her over so she’s beneath me and lift one of her legs as I sink back inside her. My lips find the shell of her ear. I don’t look at her face, I just use her body the same way she just used mine. “You came fast, Scarlett. Do your boy toys not get the job done?” She yanks my mouth back to hers and bites my bottom lip so hard I taste blood.

Scarlett can’t be owned or tamed or controlled. It’s part of her appeal. Wild, raw beauty is the most devastating sort. She’s a storm, the cataclysmic kind you can’t help but respect even as you mourn its upheaval.

“What’s it like to fuck your wife, Crew?”

Adrenaline floods my system. I’m high—on sensation, on thrill, on her. I rub her swollen clit as I keep fucking her with quick, brutal thrusts. “Do you always get this wet, or is it for me?”

Scarlett fights it, but I hear the moan slip between her lips. Goose bumps pebble her bare skin, despite the fact the air conditioning isn’t on in here. I take and take and take, speeding up the pace of my thrusts with each stroke. And she spreads her legs as far as they’ll go, letting me in deeper. Begging without words.

I pound into her like I’m winning our battle of wills, like I’m claiming her as a prize. Scarlett claws at my back and meets my thrusts, spurring me on. She can lie to me all she wants, but her body can’t engage in the same deception. Setting aside the mess of other emotions between us, the things we haven’t said, our chemistry is the combustible sort. It crackles in the air like a summer storm.

She’s wearing my ring, but she’s never felt like mine. This is the only way I can claim her, fucking her as hard and as thoroughly as possible. The headboard taps a cadence against the wall. Sweat builds between our bodies.

I slow my movements, not ready for this to end yet. Scarlett swears. I’ll have marks on my back tomorrow.

“Please, Crew. Please.”

She begs me before she starts to convulse again, and I don’t have a prayer of making this last any longer. The throaty pleas set me off. A tsunami of pleasure hits, rolling through my body in a powerful wave. Heat erupts in a white-hot fire that shoots through me and erases everything else. Thoughts, fears, worries? All gone.

There’s just me and the woman making me come harder than I ever have before.

The aftermath of sex is usually predictable. I’m used to clinginess and questions. With Scarlett, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected.

So when I pull out and toss the condom and the first thing she says is, “You’re good in bed,” I laugh.

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“I’m not.”

Close to a compliment. “I can go…”

She shifts so her head is on a pillow. A slight breeze shifts the air as she drags the sheets over her naked body. “If you want.”

It’s not what I want, and I know the word choice was deliberate. So I lie down beside her.

I stare up at the ceiling, trying to reconcile how it’s possible for something to surpass every expectation and to also fall short.

In the darkness, there’s no metric for time passing. Seconds, minutes, maybe hours later, Scarlett’s breathing hasn’t evened.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Her leg jerks, hitting mine. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Nope.” I pop the P, just to extend the one word I have to offer.

“It was…different than I was expecting.”

I tense. Debate responding. Grind my molars. “Your surgeon makes you come three times?” I sound jealous—sound like I care—and I hate that I do. I should be relieved she’s not clingy. That I’ll never need to feel guilty for taking other women up on their offers. Instead, I’m marinating in a disgusting mixture of rage and annoyance.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

She’s silent. For so long, I wonder if she’s managed to fall asleep.