Unsteady (The Torqued Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  He’s not waiting any longer, his patience gone as he enters me with a low growl from deep within.

  We both gasp when he’s in, breathing escaping me entirely, but all I can do is inhale a much-needed breath.

  Red doesn’t move right away, when he does, it’s slow as if he’s wanting this to last.

  He lowers his lips to the back of my neck when he begins to move a little faster, but still, he’s not rushing. It may be torture, but it’s the sweetest agony.

  Within in a minute, I realize he has a way that he moves, much like he did in the shop that night. It’s a swagger that only he can pull off.

  One of his hands is in my hair, but his other hand snakes around my front between me and the mattress and begins to caress me again.

  Instantly heat begins to build within and I’m gasping and whimpering at what he’s giving me, something no one else has cared to give. He’s not just fucking me. Red could never do that. It’s not in his heart to do so. This is in his heart.

  His mouth nips at my skin, his hands on my ass forcing me into every move he’s making with each thrust inside of me

  “Come for me, baby. Just one more… come for me,” he begs in a low raspy voice that makes me shiver, rattles my bones. He pleads for more, “Give me one more.”

  He’s begging for me to give in and give him what I’ve never given anyone else.

  It’s not his movements that do it—though they’re enough—it’s that voice and those words. Oh, and his hand between my legs that I’m desperately grinding against. Until Red, I’ve never had an orgasm during sex.

  Wanting to give all of myself to him, my body arches off the mattress an inch, curving around him, my hips angling just enough that nothing remains of my control. I’m gone completely.

  His groan is low as if this sight is too much for him to bare. “That’s it, fuck… so good.”

  His weight settles into me more and he grunts with each thrust, touching his forehead to my shoulder blade. Words fall from his lips, but I can’t hear them, all I focus on is pleasure that shoots through me and blinds me.

  Red slams his hips into mine even harder while I rock myself into his hand, his bed creaking with our steady movements.

  Twisting my head, I watch as his head drops forward, his teeth sinking into his lower lips. The sight too much to bare. I squeeze my eyes shut, my orgasm surfacing, my legs shaking as the warm burst of waves rush throughout my body as I come for him a second time.

  Just as I don’t want it to end, his thrusts come a little faster and I know what’s coming. He’s breathing hard, chest heaving, every muscle tensed as he hovers above me. He looks at me, a quick glance, then his eyes dip low. He slams into me two more times, his eyes squeezing shut. I angle my ass so that he can plunge deeper inside me. “That’s it, baby. Come for me,” I whisper, when I know he’s about to release.

  His orgasm stretches long and delicious. When he moans, it vibrates through my entire body. His cock pulses, swelling and pumping as he fills me with his release.

  “Holy shit!” He pants, slumping forward but still supported by his shaking arms.

  Well, fuck. That was amazing.

  Red draws in a deep breath, still panting as he rolls to the side. I almost whimper at not being connected any long.

  An influx of emotions, contentment, love, fear, they all flood through me when it’s over and I turn toward the window, unable to look at him.

  We lay in silence, and I want to look over and stare at him all creepily like an obsessive teenage crush, but I don’t.

  Red doesn’t seem too interested in moving either. His touch is slow and tentative at first, mirroring his slow breathing. A gentle kiss follows before he wraps his arms around me, pulling me close. His hold becomes a little tighter when a soft sigh escapes him, tickling my skin. It’s exactly what I want.

  I lay awake for what seems like hours afterwards. I listen to him softly breathing in my ear and holding me close to his chest.

  There is no sound in the house. Nothing. It’s as if the world has stopped and it’s just us.

  My bedroom is painted in dim blue light. Beside me, Lenny’s sleeping. With her back turned to me, I’m gifted with a pretty good view of her naked ass. My hands slowly glide over milky white skin I want to bite. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the softness of a woman beside me as she sleeps.

  Touching my forefinger to the black ink over her hip, she stirs, her breathing accelerating.

  I have no idea what it is Lenny’s doing to me.

  I know I want her here. I know I can make her happy. I know she fills a void in my life.

  “Again?” she asks, laughing lightly.

  “Shhhh,” I say, moving between her legs.

  Lenny gasps at my weight on her, my lips trailing over her collarbone.

  She reaches up, her arms around my shoulders as her body arches around me, her eyes squeezed shut. “I should get going….”

  “Did you like my cock buried deep in your pussy?” I ask in the space between her neck and shoulder.

  “Y-y-yes,” she barely whispers, a pleased, erotic fucking whisper as she arches into me.

  I move my hand from the mattress to the heat between her legs. “Then stay… so I can do it again.”

  “Fuck me,” she says firmly, gripping my hair with both hands and fisting strands between her fingers. Needing no more invitation, I part momentarily to put on a condom and then I move her right leg up and then slip inside her dripping wet pussy. She grabs on to my back tightly, wrapping a leg up around my hip as I move to position.

  That position seems to be what she wants, her leg falling away as her hands once again go to my hair. I’m beginning to understand she’s a hair puller and I fucking love it.

  “Oh God.” She moans, tossing her head against the pillow.

  “You like that, don’t you?” I ask between thrusts.

  “Yes, so much.”

  The early morning breeze through the open window moves through the room capturing her small pleas for me to go deeper, harder, faster, thrusting into her with a ravenous intensity I know she wants from me.

  I need to see her body, but I can’t in this position so I pull out completely, sitting back on my heels and then slap the side of her ass. “Get on your knees.”

  With a wicked smile, she does as I say. I put her hands on my headboard. “Hold on.”

  Lenny lets go and looks at me over her shoulder, ready to say something. I put my hand on her cheek and turn her head back to the headboard. “I said hold on.”

  Her tiny body shakes with laughter. “You’re so bossy. Next thing I know you’re going to ask me to find the rattle in your headboard.”

  “You’re the one who demanded I fuck you harder. Don’t complain when I leave you sore.”

  I press my palm between her shoulders, her face in the pillow. The position gives me a nice view of her full hips and the ink spread across her left side.

  Goddamn, she’s beautiful.

  Pressing forward, my erection slides between her ass cheeks. Both my hands go to her ass, spreading her cheeks.

  As I’m watching this beautiful sight, Lenny mumbles, “What are you waiting for?”

  My hand moves from her ass to her head, pushing her face into the pillow. “Shut up.” My other hand goes to my erection, guiding myself inside her warm, wet center.

  Lenny laughs, but I quickly wipe that grin away, along with any talking when I start pounding into her. The harder I slam into her, the more she reacts, the tighter her pussy clenches around me, the louder the moans rip from her throat. So I fuck her like she wants.

  Needing a better angle, I raise my right leg up so my foot is flat on the bed, my knee bent. With my left hand squeezing her hip, my right splays out over the small of her back. Her body starts to unravel. A tremble rushes through her body as she attempts to control her movements. All the while, her moaning pleas for me never to stop fill the room.

  I don’t stop, not until we we�
��re both letting go and my body explodes with pleasure as I release inside of her.

  “So fucking good,” I whisper, slumping against her back.

  “Now that’s a wake-up call I could get used to,” Lenny sighs in pleasure, falling back asleep in my arms.

  SHE FEELS SO good, touching me, exploring my body. Her hands trail over my ribs and she stops to look at the artwork and word imprinted there. Moving them lower, she reaches my stomach, lower… lower…. Ah, yes.

  Grasping my dick with her hand, she moans into my neck, kissing me. “Ready for more?”

  Three times in the last seven hours would be a bit much for a man nearing thirty, though stopping her seems ridiculous and my dick definitely wants to go again.

  And then Nova knocks the door. “Why is the door locked, Daddy? I want to come in there.”

  Lenny jerks her hand up, her leg that was draped over my thighs comes up and knees me right in the balls.

  “Fuck!” I groan, cupping my balls with both hands as I turn away from Lenny immediately.

  “What’s wrong, Daddy?” Nova asks, her voice elevated in concern.

  “Nothing. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Lenny’s eyes are wide, her hand cupped over her mouth as she stares at me. “I’m so sorry.”

  I shake my head and stand, well, try to. It takes me a second. When I can move without pain, I kiss Lenny’s temple. “Get dressed. I make a mean waffle.”

  No way I’m letting Lenny leave today. She’s staying here tonight.

  Dressed in only a pair of shorts, I pad out to the kitchen to make breakfast with Nova behind me.

  Lenny emerges a minute later wearing a pair of my sweat pants and her tank top from last night, a messy bun on top of her head. “I have so much dirt in my hair from last night and I’m pretty sure my ass is exfoliated from all the dirt on your sheets.” And then she looks at Nova and slaps her hand over her mouth.

  I smile, crossing my arms over my chest to watch her sit down at the table. “You’re welcome to take a shower if you want.”

  Her eyes immediately go to my bare chest, a blush painting her cheeks, and then at Nova who’s staring at her iPad.

  “Did you have a sleepover?” Nova asks, eyeing me and then Lenny.

  “Uh….” Lenny panics, looking to me for an answer.

  I set a waffle in front of Nova and kiss the top of her head. “Yes, she had a sleepover.”

  Nova scowls at me as I lean over her chair, my hands resting on the table in front of her. “Daddy.” Her arms cross over her chest. “No fair. I wanted to have a sleep over with you guys.”

  “Sorry, darlin’.” I laugh, moving away from the table to check on Lenny’s waffle.

  My back is turned to the grill when Nova asks Lenny, “Did you get laid last night?”

  Yes, actually. Twice.

  I turn and wait to see what Lenny’s going to say.

  “What?” Lenny stammers, clutching her chest in horror and looks at me for an answer.

  “She slept great,” I tell Nova, moving around the kitchen as I remove the waffle from the iron and place it in front of Lenny. “She said the bed was a little hard.” Lenny’s eyes snap to mine, her cheeks heating with crimson as she lets out a nervous chuckle when I wink.

  “Daddy’s bed is really hard,” Nova agrees, just before stuffing a large bite of waffle in her mouth, a drop of syrup dripping from her chin.

  Lenny turns her attention to her plate and the remains of her waffle. “It is pretty hard.”

  If there was a moment in time I’d want to capture and hold forever, it’d be right now. I’d keep it deep within the spaces of my mind so I could go back to it anytime I wanted to. I’d live in the pause, in the space between his breaths as my name fell from his lips.

  I know last night shouldn’t be such a highlight, but for me it was. And this right now is, in his arms just as the sun lights his room and bathes the two of us in summer sweet rays.

  For me, this is as close to perfect as it can get.

  Red Walker is a lot of things I’m not. Complicated. Okay, we have that in common. But he doesn’t fear losing control like I do. I don’t think he fears love like I do either.

  In some ways, he lives his life on the edge of control and while that terrifies me, I find it insanely hot because there’s something devastatingly beautiful about him.

  It seems we’re balancing each other out. And that’s what’s so foreign and difficult for me to understand because I’ve never connected with anyone like this. I’ve had to balance myself most of my life.

  I never knew what it was like to have someone touch me like his. A strong, addicting grip I could easily beg for, something I needed to breathe.

  And for the first time in a week, I haven’t thought about Ben and my situation all morning. Not because I’ve forgotten, but because Red has a way of keeping my thoughts from him.

  If the wounds my heart has were on the outside, I’d be a rusted bare metal car with a blown motor. It’s such a shitty thing to say, but I’ve been hurt in so many ways over the past twenty-three years, it’s hard to know how to react when someone begins to treat you the way you should be.

  I constantly forgave my mother, and Wes, and eventually Ben for the things they put me through. I told my heart to forgive because it was easier than hurting.

  It’s not until I walked away from that life, those lies, that I finally have a choice not to forgive and remember that I deserve better than the life I lived back then. I deserve to be loved with wild passion. I deserve to be appreciated and that’s something Red can provide for me. I’m sure of it.

  “Are you mad at me?” I ask Red as we sit in his backyard drinking beer as Nova plays with her horses in the sandbox.

  “What would I be mad at you about?”

  “For not telling you about Ben.”

  “No, I’m certainly not mad at you.” He draws in a breath. “But you and I both know it’s only a matter of time before he finds you.”

  “I know.”

  “So what’s his deal anyway? Why’s he so hell bent on finding you?”

  I realize then I haven’t given Red much information about me at all. “I met Ben at a really shitty time in my life, kinda similar to meeting you.” I snort and he lifts his lips as if he wants to smile, but can’t. “I met him at a bar and went home with him that night. Just a couple of months later, he asked me to marry him. I was so enthralled with the idea that someone loved me enough to marry me that I said yes. It was never that he loved me. It was that he wanted to control me.”

  “And what made you leave and run here?”

  I have to force myself to breathe, long calming breaths and clear my head. I’m afraid I won’t make much sense if I don’t. “One night I came home from work and he hit me in the face. And some other things… anyway, something snapped inside of me and I knew I needed to get out then or I might not.”

  Red’s jaw clenches in anger. He’s quiet for so long I’m afraid I’ve freaked him out. I put everything out there. All of it because he deserves to know the truth. “What about this Wes guy? Your foster dad?”

  “I haven’t seen or spoke to him since the day I left his house when I turned eighteen.”

  He nods and smiles at Nova who comes up to him with a dirty sticky face. “Can we have s’mores for dinner?”

  “No, but you can have s’mores for dessert. How about hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner?”

  Nova’s eyes light up and she glances at me as she hands me a hair tie. “Okay. Lenny, are you gonna stay today?”

  I take the hair tie and put her hair in a ponytail out of her face. “If you want me to.”

  “I do!” Feeling her ponytail, she seems satisfied and takes off running back to her sandbox.

  Red reaches for my empty beer in my hand and tosses it in the garbage can. “Want another?”

  “Sure.”

  For hours, we sit outside and talk while Nova plays and never once do I get the idea there’s anywhere el
se he’d rather be. He listens to me talk about the various foster homes I was in, the way I was shuffled around and left to take care of myself.

  “It says a lot about you as a person to look past how others have treated you.”

  I flip those words around in my head for a while, grasping their meaning and why he said them to me.

  Nova squeals with delight beside us, clapping her hands and pointing to the grass beside the sandbox. “Look, a snake!” She then picks up the red and black garter snake as it curls and coils, attempting to get away from her tiny dirty hands. “Daddy, you want it?”

  The look on Red’s face takes me completely by surprise. I can’t tell if it’s more fear or disgust. He starts to shift in his chair as if he’s trying to put more space between him and Nova without it being obvious.

  “Nova, go put the snake back where you found it.” I can tell he’s trying to sound authoritative, but honestly, he just sounds nervous. Needless to say, his plan doesn’t work and to his horror, she tosses it in our direction and throws the snake directly at Red. It literally lands on his lap.

  In a jerked motion, he jumps up knocking his beer and chair to the ground and flings the snake out of his lap. “THE FUCK!”

  It hits the concrete with a slap and slithers to the edge of the grass between the fence and the patio.

  I can’t help the look of surprise that has to be so obvious on my face. “Are you afraid of snakes?” I ask, barely able to keep from bursting out in laughter. The thought that Reddington Walker is afraid of snakes is one of the funniest damn things I can think of. He’s easily six two some 200 pounds of tattooed bad boy and here he is looking like he wants to climb on the roof to escape a snake.

  “What? No,” he says not at all convincingly, keeping his eyes on the snake as if to make sure it doesn’t turn around and attack.

  “He’s lying.” Nova puts her hand on her hip. Sassy little thing.