“Oh. Medium, I guess.” The words come out shyly. “The color of the sky when there aren’t clouds.”
I’m suddenly thinking about her silky skin. I’m thinking about me pressing her against that cherry-red car, my cock at her flat belly, her tight little ass cheeks squished against the warmth of that metal. Blue cotton straining and stretching. Azure.
“You know what I think, Brooke?”
“What?”
“I think there’s a part of your panties that’s dark blue.”
“No, they’re completely blue. I mean, medium blue,” she says, her breathless voice betraying her. “With white lace.”
“I happen to know for a fact that there’s a part that’s darker than the rest.”
“I think I would know.” I can hear the slight smile in her voice.
“You want me to prove it?”
Silence.
“Put your hand between your legs.”
“Stone!” The way she gasps my name gets me even harder.
“Do it.”
“I don’t…I can’t…”
“Yes, you can. It’s so easy. Just slip that pretty little hand—your fingernails are painted pink, aren’t they? Slip them down over your panties. Touch yourself. See if you’re wet.”
“No,” she says on a sigh, but I know I’m winning.
“Okay, okay. Look, how about something easy. You know that line of skin above the elastic band of your panties? Right below the hem of your top? You’re going to trace that with your finger.”
She says nothing. It’s just soft breath. She’s not doing it, but she will. I’ll make her. It’s wrong, what I’m doing, but I tell myself it’s better she’s doing it to herself than me doing it to her. Better her soft, silky fingers on her instead of my fingers, rough and brutal and scarred as the moon.
“I don’t know if I want to do this,” she says.
“You do want to do it. You know how I know?”
“No.”
“Because I’m a bad guy, a criminal, and I can tell things other people can’t. I can tell when somebody’s heart is beating like crazy the way yours is right now. I know when they say they don’t want to do things, but they secretly kind of want to.”
There’s a soft sound, like a whimper.
I push harder. “I live outside of the law. That is where I live, little bird, and that’s where you went the first night with me. And you think I can’t see you, but guess what? You’re in my fucking living room, and it’s my hand you’re going to press between your legs because you belong to me.”
She lets out a shaky breath.
“Are you scared?”
“I don’t know,” she says.
“I think you do know. Honesty works both ways. I won’t lie to you, but this doesn’t work if you lie to me. This all falls apart.” It’s a threat. A push. “And you don’t want that, do you?”
“No.”
I push aside the relief I feel that she wants this. That she’s fucking glorious and sexy and desperate in it. A beautiful girl like her, turned on by fear. Like the fucking holy grail for a bastard like me. “So tell me. Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good. But here’s the thing—you don’t ever have to worry about anything when you’re mine. I’ve got you. You’re safe, and you’re going to touch yourself until you come.”
Her breath catches.
“Did you ever make yourself come before?” I ask.
There’s a silence. Then, “Yeah.”
“Now you’re gonna do it for me.”
“But…what about you?”
I pause, considering the question. There’s no way I’m touching myself in the middle of a seedy park. The question means more than that, at least to me. What about you? It means, what do you want from me? What’s the endgame here?
Of course there’s no future for me and a girl like her. No future for me at all. I’m going down in a hail of bullets. As long as I can free Grayson and take as many of the assholes who kept us in that basement with me, I’m content with that.
That means all we have is the here, the now. The imaginary touch of my hands on her pale skin.
“I’m there,” I say, my voice hard. “I’m with you, my hand on your stomach, my fingers edging under the band of your panties. Do you feel me?”
There’s a gentle rustle of fabric. A hitch of breath. “Yes.”
In that one word, I see everything—her hand slipping into her panties, her wide eyes in the privacy of her bedroom. Her other hand clutching her phone like the dirty little secret that I am to her. It feels like victory, like I’m so fucking proud, so fucking pleased, that it doesn’t even matter what happens tonight. Doesn’t matter if I find the people we’ve been searching for forever. And that makes her dangerous.
“Now lower,” I say. “I bet you have hair, don’t you? Springy curls a little darker than the hair on your head.”
Her whisper comes out in a rush. “Omigod.”
“You’re doing good,” I say. “It probably feels a little coarse to you, but it would be a fucking cloud against my cock.”
She makes a high-pitched noise. “You can’t—”
“There’s nothing I can’t do to you, baby. That’s what you need to learn. Your body belongs to me. Your mind belongs to me. Every part of you is mine for me to touch. Even that swollen pink slit. Slide your fingers down. See how wet you are.”
A moan. “This is wrong.”
“You love it. Imagine how shocked your mother would be. How angry your father would be. Every person in that fucking birthday party, smiling for you, looking down at you like you’re some little kid. And meanwhile you’re fucking yourself with your fingers, hungry and slick, desperate enough to come for a criminal.”
Her breath comes faster. “I won’t.”
“Won’t what?” She’s already doing it.
“What you said. I won’t come.”
Despite the aching in my cock, I give a soft laugh. “Come. Is that the first time you’ve used the word like that? How about another word? Like climax. Orgasm. Do you want to orgasm, little bird?”
“No,” she stutters, but it’s a lie.
I could call her on it, demand honesty, make her admit how much she wants this, needs it. But there’s something delicious about pushing her against her will. “Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Whether you want to come or not, you’re going to. Those fingers are so wet, aren’t they? Your body knows who it belongs to. Me, sweetheart. You’re mine.”
A black car pulls around the block, crossing right in front of me. Chrome gleams in the moonlight. All the hair on the back of my neck rises. My body is revved up by arousal and pure violent impulse.
Her soft moan is a balm to my cold anger, thawing me out enough to say, “Now find your clit. You know where that is, don’t you? You play with yourself at night, finding all the places that feel good. It must be hard now. Hard and sensitive. Pinch it. Right now.”
She makes a hoarse sound. “Stone. Not like this. You’re not…with me.”