The music was loud, bathing the packed bar in golds and shimmers of rose. The crowd still leaned heavily in favor of the residents, but there were enough seasonal workers and early tourists to shift the balance. As she sipped her drink, straight bourbon tonight, and kept up with the conversations around her, Remi thought about what she’d be doing if this were a normal night in her normal life.
In Alessandra’s life.
She would have been painting, alone into the night. Or she might have been dressed up, made up, for an event to sell herself, her talent to buyers with the right kind of deep pockets.
Instead, she was crammed in between Audrey and Kimber and lusting after her bartending boyfriend. Kimber was doing her best to ignore Kyle, who had not only shown up but bought the last two rounds and was trying to coax her sister into a dance. Spencer—having shown up on the afternoon ferry the day before—was sandwiched in between Audrey and Darius’s boyfriend, Ken.
Brick hadn’t even blinked at the extra guest. With two kids, a separated sister, an ex-wife, and a dog, what was one more?
Remi, on the other hand, had blinked an eye on her way to bed, when she’d spotted Spencer sneaking into Audrey’s room after midnight. Audrey’s arm snaking out and dragging him inside.
Brick hadn’t come home from his patrol until two, when she’d already been sound asleep, curled up with Magnus in his big bed. Their morning quickie had been interrupted before it started with a call from dispatch.
Between the full house and the beginning of the tourist season, they hadn’t had any alone time, and she was desperate for him.
The feeling appeared to be mutual. Every time he turned back to her, his gaze dipped to the lace-up front of her sweater dress. It was a long-sleeved mini dress in hunter green that hugged her curves. She’d paired it with gray suede boots that stopped at mid-thigh.
All with the express purpose of driving Brick Callan crazy.
She knew the signals of his arousal. The tightening of his jaw, the flare of his nostrils like he could catch her scent. The narrowing of those blue eyes that burned with an intensity that took her breath away. The way his fingers lingered on the glass he served her.
He smoldered. And she ate it up.
When AC/DC’s “Shoot to Thrill” came on in a storm of reds and oranges, Remi dragged Audrey and Kimber out on the crowded dance floor with her. They danced like they had in high school, shimmying and grinding for the pure enjoyment of it.
When a friendly red-headed guy in a button-down put his hands on her hips, she felt the weight of Brick’s gaze on her. Heating her skin and making her nipples ache for his mouth, for that rough scratch of his beard. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and raised her arms as the song came to a climax, letting the colors, the beat of the music, flow over her.
The crowd whooped when the song ended, and Remi fanned herself. With a wave at her dance partner, she headed down the hallway toward the restrooms. A hand gripped her upper arm hard, and she found herself being propelled out the emergency exit.
Her pulse sky-rocketed as a pissed-off looking Brick whirled her around to face the facade of the building. He kicked a crate over on its side then lifted her to stand her on top of it.
“Hands on the wall,” he ordered, lips tickling her ear as those big, broad hands of his traveled the front of her body.
Light and laughter poured from the window next to them as their friends and neighbors went about their Friday night business, none the wiser to the debauchery happening on the other side of the wall.
“Here?” she whispered, eagerly slapping her palms against the clapboard siding. He kicked her feet out, widening her stance, making Remi instantly wet and aching. She’d fantasized about this for so many years. Pushing him past his limits so he had to drag her away, had to take her, and remind her who she belonged to.
The sound of his belt loosening had her breath catch in her throat.
“You keep breathing for me, baby. Nice and deep.”
She nodded vigorously. God, she hoped her breath wasn’t the only thing going nice and deep.
The sound his zipper made as he lowered it was music to her ears. And when his hands slid under the hem of her dress, pushing it up over her hips, she whimpered.
Her fingers bit into the rough surface of the wall as she tilted her hips in invitation, offering herself to him.
He growled his approval and traced one finger over her underwear, dipping it into the seam between her cheeks. On instinct, she pressed her hips back against his touch. Wanting.
“You’re my bad girl tonight,” he rasped possessively.
“Yes,” she hissed when she felt him fist his erection at the root and guide it along the same path his finger had just taken.
“You want my touch everywhere.” To emphasize his point, he thrust the crown of his cock against her, the thin cotton barrier preventing him from penetrating her.
She didn’t trust her voice to answer. To tell him how much she wanted him to take her and make her his plaything. So she nodded instead, trembling with anticipation.
He dragged her underwear down to mid-thigh. Adrenaline dumped into her bloodstream, mixing with the wild need she felt for him. Even here in the narrow walkway between buildings where they could easily be discovered, she trusted him implicitly to take care of her, to keep her safe, to take her the way she needed to be taken.
His breath was hot against her neck, his body hard and ready at her back.
She felt the current of air a split second before his palm connected with her ass in a stinging slap. The sound of it echoing off the wall of the building.
“That’s for teasing me in public,” he growled in her ear as he held the hem of her dress at her back. There was a low rumble of triumph in his chest, and she could picture him fisting his cock with one big hand as he watched her skin turn pink.
Remi tried to squeeze her thighs together to relieve some of the pressure that had built to astronomical heights. But he didn’t allow it.
“No, baby. You don’t get to feel better yet,” he said. She could hear the rhythmic stroking of his palm wrapped around his arousal.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He groaned again.
The next slap caught her by surprise, and she yelped. It was even harder, and the sting of it drove her crazy. Never in her wildest dreams did she think she could push Brick this far. That he’d have to drag her outside to discipline her while being so turned on he had to pleasure himself while he did it.
She felt the crown of his penis dragging across her abused flesh, leaving a slick trail.
His pleasure made hers even fiercer.
“That’s for liking your punishment.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, nearly giddy with need.
“You know what I should do?” he pressed himself against her, and she gasped as the thick head of his erection slid between her legs, parting her folds.
“W-what?” she whispered.
“I should just use you to get myself off. Bad girls don’t get to come.”
She could feel his knuckles where he gripped his shaft against her. Guiding it through her folds. She tilted her hips, hinging forward so his head grazed her clitoris. Her legs shook, her core clenching greedily.
But Brick wasn’t done torturing her. He dragged the head of his cock back through her wetness and up the valley of her behind. Back and forth with violent strokes of his hand. He could make her come like this. When she was strung this tight, he could make her come doing anything.