Sticky (12 page)

I
’m lying
in the bathtub, floating in the warm, soapy, scented water. Strong, familiar hands caress my legs, run up between my thighs, over my stomach, around my waist, taking their time, feeling every inch of me. I sink lower in the water, letting my knees rise above the surface as my shoulders sink below it. Between the warmth and his touch, I’m ready to let go, to just drift away on the intoxicating high he gives me.

His hands find my breasts, massaging at first, then squeezing tighter, his fingers circling my nipples, rolling them taut between his thumb and forefinger, pinching just hard enough for me to gasp. That makes him laugh, deep and throaty, and my body thrills at the sound of his voice so close to my ear. I reach for him. But my arms are too heavy to lift from the water, too relaxed. I can’t make myself move, can’t do anything, as he continues to take what he wants from me. His lips find my neck, my shoulder, my chest. They clamp tight around my breast and his tongue takes over where his fingers left off, licking my rock-solid nipple faster and faster, until a peak starts to rise behind my closed eyes, and sparks fire in the recesses of my mind. I had no idea it could feel like this.

But he’s not finished yet. Nowhere near it. Those hands run down my body, grabbing my ass tight for a second, lifting me off the floor of the tub. I can almost feel the added heat from his body, almost sense him somewhere above me, but before our bodies touch, he lets me go again, hands delving between my thighs instead, parting me wide open. The warm water bubbles around me, the lavender scent I poured in tickling my senses as his fingers glide along my slit, slowly, painfully slowly, until they hit home, brushing across my clit lightly, teasing.

My hips buck, out of my control, I can’t help the motions anymore. I’m completely under his spell. One of his fingers slides into me, and my lips part in a gasp, but no sound comes out. It’s all I can do to remember how to breathe, as he adds another finger, another, until he has all four inside me and he’s fucking me slowly, making me ride his hand, his palm grinding against my clit, just hard enough to make white hot pleasure close across my vision. I can’t see anything, can’t feel anything but him, and I can even catch his scent now, mingled with the bath around us. That familiar, heady masculine scent that I’ve missed so damn much.

Missed it. Why have I missed it?

His hand twists inside of me for another thrust and I cry out, losing that train of thought. This, this is where I belong. Who I belong to. This is right. I don’t need anything in the world but him.

Except . . . 

There’s the nagging sense, back in the depths of my brain, that I’m missing something here. He delves in deeper and I writhe beneath him, the water splashing around us. His palm circles harder and harder against my clit, until I feel myself start to convulse, nearing the peak, almost at it . . . 

My eyes fly open. I’m panting, drenched in sweat, tangled deep in the sheets of my bed. Alone.

Shit. Just a fucking dream.

Because the moment I open my eyes, cruel, finite reality comes crashing down. He’s gone. He’s gone, and I will never feel like that again—so completely possessed by someone, so utterly belonging to him, and him to me.

How is it possible that my stupid, impulsive, reckless heart could find itself so attached to so completely the wrong person? How could it be that I felt so at home in his arms, when he was lying to me all along?

How did everything feel so real, when he was only pretending . . . ?

I shove myself out of bed and stumble to the shower. Unlike the lavender-scented bathtub of my dreams, my shower only smells vaguely of mildew. I turn the water on hot and fill my palm with the cheap bath soap from the drug store, lathering it into a frenzy in an effort to get the bathroom, or at least myself, to smell a little bit better.

Normally I like the eucalyptus scent of this, subtle and unassuming. Today, it’s not enough. But I make do, taking my time to rub it all over myself. I can’t help it—part of me still hasn’t woken up yet, and as I run my hands over my hips, my ass, my thighs, I remember his rough hands in the dream taking control of me.

I finish soaping up, turn to rinse down, and I let my hand drift between my legs, pressing at my clit. It’s not the same, but if I close my eyes and lean against the cool shower wall, I can almost imagine him here beside me, touching me instead, leaning over me to catch my eye as he parts the lips of my pussy and presses a finger deep into me.

I’m working myself into a state, almost there, part of me knowing it’s a terrible idea to get off to him, after all this, but most of me not caring because it’s the only fantasy that takes me anywhere near the climax these days. I squeeze my eyes tight and I see him on top of me, thrusting into me, his cock so big he’s stretching me, engulfing me, totally claiming me for himself and there’s nothing I can do about it and I wouldn’t want to because—

Fuck
.

The door buzzer sounds, right as I reach the edge.

Doubly frustrated now, I shut off the rapidly cooling water and stumble out of the shower, my legs shaky. Even in dreams and fantasies, I can’t finish anymore. Damn him.

I towel off as fast as I can, even as the buzzer rings once more.

“I’m coming!” I shout grumpily at the shower door, even though I know, obviously, whoever’s downstairs at my door can’t hear it. I wrap the towel tight around my body and stomp across my living room, leaving puddles as I go. This had better not be my idiot brother again.

But if not him, who? UPS? I haven’t ordered anything that I can remember.

I press the talk button. “Hello?”

Crackling silence on the other end. It carries on for so long that I’m about to disconnect, when the speaker finally clicks on. “Sloan, it’s me.”

I stare at the speaker. This cannot be happening. Cannot be real. I’m still dreaming, that’s it. I’m still lost in the happy dream place, in the bathroom full of lavender, where it would be totally normal for Gage to show up at my door.

I swallow hard. “What do you want?” I ask, and I hate the way my voice cracks, giving me away. Last time I saw him I was angry. I’m still angry, but now I’m hurting, too, and I don’t want him to see that. He doesn’t deserve to see how much he hurts me. He only deserves the anger.

“Please let me up. It’s important, I swear, or I wouldn’t have come.”

“Fuck off,” I tell him, and I disconnect the speaker.

There’s a long silence on the other side. Long enough that I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding and let my body sag against the doorframe, my legs shaking beneath me. Part of me wants to cry and part of me wants to scream and a very tiny part wants to chase him down the block to just ask
Why
, but I have way too much dignity for that.

I collect my towel around me, ready to head back to my room, to dress for another day of paranoid couch-hanging, since my brother has convinced me it’s too dangerous to go to work right now. Which is sounding crazier and crazier the longer I’m cooped up in this apartment alone with my thoughts.

That’s when the doorknob turns.

I yelp.

Brilliant, Sloan. That will fend off the attackers. I dart toward the kitchen, trying to spy if I left a rolling pan out somewhere, or a knife, a pot, anything I could use to defend myself.

The door creaks open and I duck behind the counter. Shit. Why do I put everything away? Oh probably because I haven’t cooked in a week, I’ve just been ordering delivery. Dammit.

“Relax. It’s just me.”

That does not make me relax. It does, however, make all the wind rush out of my lungs. I feel like I’ve just been sucker-punched, my stomach churning with the metaphorical kick.

I pull myself to standing on legs shakier than ever, and lift my head to face him. My dream. My nightmare.

Gage. Towering over me, tall and shapely as ever, his hair still hanging across his eyes in that shaggy, unkept, I-couldn’t-care-less-what-you-think-about-me way that is too sexy for words. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, either. Unfortunately that level of rugged stubble looks fine as hell on him.

Bastard.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I clench my fists, ready to shove him backwards out of here if I have to. Except, of course, I can’t let go of the towel wrapped around me. The towel that his eyes wander up and down appreciatively.

The only small satisfaction I take from this whole situation is the way his throat bobs hard when he swallows, his mouth parting slightly.

At least I still affect him in one way. He may have been using me all along, but it’s gratifying to see that at least some of the physical attraction between us wasn’t just for show.

His expression melts into a deep frown. His eyes, when he finally manages to drag them away from my assets to meet my gaze, are twin pools of sorrow, lined in bloodshot red, hung underneath with bags as heavy as my heart feels.

He’s suffering too, it looks like. I’m not sure why he’s in pain, but I feel a surge of vengeful pleasure.
Good
. I hope his boss or whoever sent him after us is angry at him. I hope he’s making Gage’s life hell right now.

Then Gage opens his mouth. “I had to see you.”

I can’t help it. I bark out a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You just
broke into my house
—”

“I meant everything I said to you, Sloan. I meant how I felt.”

Twist the knife, why don’t you. It’s not enough to break my heart, to play me once, but you have to try it again, take me for an utter fool? “You can save your pathetic attempts at seduction for the next girl whose brother you need to rob, got it?” I storm across the room toward him, but he surges past me into the apartment.

Rage shudders over me. I grab my cell phone and snap it open. “Get out right now or I’m calling the cops. Breaking and entering is a crime, Gage. How did you even get through my front door?”

He raises both hands in front of himself, a pathetic attempt at a peace gesture. “Sloan, please, just hear me out. You aren’t safe here. The fact that your next-door neighbor let me in without even a very thorough explanation is proof enough of that. I didn’t mean to do this to you, I swear, but we can talk about it later—”

“Right. You just
accidentally
fucked me to get closer to my brother.”

“That’s not what . . . ” He spins away from me and runs a hand through his hair, his shoulders sagging as he glares out my window. “That’s how I met you, yes. My boss—Aaron O’Malley, the guy from that letter—asked me to get close to Freddie. He suggested I try to use you, since you’re the only person Freddie talks to really.”

I clench my fists around my cell phone. I wanted to hear this, I wanted him to admit to me exactly what he’d done. But now that he’s saying it, I’m not so sure I want to relive it out loud. It was bad enough to know it myself, but to hear him admit it? To hear his deep, throaty voice as he recount all the ways he used me?

But my throat is clamped too tight around the lump inside of it to protest.

“Once I met you, Sloan . . . I knew right away that I never wanted to hurt you. Everything I told you was true.
You own me
,” he repeats, his voice catching on it. I suck in a deep breath, trying not to think, trying not to let all of the conflicting emotions coursing through me show, especially when he turns back toward me, and there are tears standing in the corners of his eyes.

I’ve never seen a man cry. Not over me.

“I’m yours, Sloan,” he repeats, and I cannot make myself look away from him. “All of this shit with Aaron, none of it matters anymore. I just need to keep you safe. I understand if you never want to hear from me again—if that’s what you want, I’ll leave.”

I open my mouth to tell him to go, but he’s not done yet. He raises a hand.

“But only after you come with me.”

I snap my mouth shut and narrow my eyes. “What the hell are you talking about?” I almost don’t want to hear his reply.

“Only for a week,” he answers, “only until this is over. Once the job is done.”

The job. The fucking job. Aka me. That does it. I drop my phone to the floor and fly across the room at him, arms extended. Damn the towel, it’s tied anyway. I shove him as hard as I can, which of course hardly moves him an inch, solid wall of muscle that he is. His hands reach up to clasp my arms, to steady me from the push, and I wrench free of him to slap his face instead.

He closes his eyes, a bright red imprint of my hand blossoming on his cheek. Other than that, he makes no motion at all.

“You’re despicable,” I spit. “You claim you care about me, that I
own you
, whatever that means, that you’re done with working for the scumbag who’s threatening the only family I have left, and then you go and say I need to
go with you
? Go where, Gage, to the creepy back alley where your boss plans to murder me or whatever?”

He winces when I say that, and I almost believe he doesn’t want it to happen. But that doesn’t mean he’s not actively working toward it anyway.

“How the hell does that make any fucking sense, Gage? Tell me. Do you think I’m a complete idiot?”

“Sloan, I’m trying to protect you. Ask your brother the same thing, he’ll agree, Aaron is relentless. He’ll stop at nothing to get that money from your brother, and . . . ” Gage reaches for me again, and I’m suddenly too tired to brush his arms off of mine. I let him grip my shoulders tight, and try not to think about the shivers that skim through my body at the feeling of his rough palms against my bare, still-damp skin. It feels so similar to my dream, me in the bath and him above me, I can almost convince myself I’m still asleep. Still dreaming.

Only now it’s become a nightmare.

“He’s ordered his men to kidnap you. Even now, he’s got his men trailing you, they’ve been staking this place out for days.”

I think about the tingle at the back of my neck. The sensation of being watched. The foot—I could swear it was a foot—I saw flash by our fire escape out in the hallway, when Freddie last came over. I shake my head so hard it feels like it’s going to fly off my neck. “No. You’re lying; you’re making this up in some sick, twisted attempt to try and get back into my good graces, but it’s not going to work, Gage, because I know what you are now.”