Hate Fuck: part two (11 page)

It should probably be enough that he’s good to me.

His arms tighten around me. “I knew I was on camera. I knew my cell phone would place me not at the scene of the crime. I never intended for you to be involved.”

“What about after? I was so scared. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around it being no big deal to you.”

“You being exposed to something like that is a big deal. Will always be a big deal. But I’ll never be the one to show it to you.”

He’s right. And I can’t very well tell him he can’t keep secrets from me—a conversation he’s neatly avoided, because he’s going to keep doing just that, damn him—and in the next breath complain about being touched by some of the drama in his life.

“You’re a bit bossy, you know that?”

He kisses my forehead. “How I’ve gotten through life.”

I burrow my face into his bare chest. He’s turned over a new, sweet leaf, but this is still Cole. Locked up tight and always in charge.

One deep and meaningful conversation isn’t going to change that.

Probably a lifetime won’t change that.

And here I am, cuddled naked in his arms, sleepily wondering if that might just be okay with me. I’m probably ten kinds of foolish, but in this moment, I’ve got more than I ever dreamed possible. It’s not the future I imagined for myself, but now it’s the one I want more than anything.

—
twelve—
 

Cole

We’ve spent the last week and a half together. Nights wrapped around each other and days spent busy getting shit done so we can do it all over again.

It feels normal. And so fucking fragile I’m a little scared to breathe the wrong way, because when I’m not with her, I’m buried in a mountain of twisted depravity that makes me sick and it has no end. Clara Forrester has agreed to talk to the FBI, and Tag will fly her to Miami after I get confirmation that the Feds have enough of an investigation to make an arrest after her interview.

Because she’s got a lot. Dates, times. People. A Danish prince and an Australian politician. Business leaders. Some people, like Morgan Reid, the FBI might be able to flip into witnesses, because Clara Forrester has
pictures
.

And now we have those pictures, too. But without context, those pictures mean nothing.

We can’t let her down, so we dig and document.

At the end of every day, I feel sick.

Two decades of Lively entertaining men with young women he lures into his world and holds captive. A gilded cage, apparently, but a cage nonetheless. And sex acts that change them forever.

Even Clara, who was a willing guest, was coerced into acts she didn’t want to participate in.

It makes me want to tear Lively apart.

But when I come back to Hailey’s place, all that fades away. She smiles brightly at me and welcomes me into her heart and her body, shows me how good love can be, and all is right for a few hours.

I’m being selfish, and she doesn’t even know it, so tonight is our first official date, and it’s all for her.

After a debate on what movie we should see turned into sex against the wall and no agreement, Hailey suggested we do something else, which is how I’ve ended up in a fucking hipster dive bar on H Street.

My woman is in her element, gleefully ordering a third round of a drink called Awesomeness, which tastes too good to not be dangerous. I’m on my second gin and tonic, and I’m nursing it because any second this place could get shut down for a health code or safety violation.

“Isn’t this music awesome? Like the
drink?
” she yells, pressing herself into my side.

I have to admit the music is good. Hard and loud. Not exactly romantic, but it does give me other ideas. “You want to dance?”

Her eyes get all big and round and she licks her lips. “Really?”

Fuck yes, if the mere suggestion gets her worked up. The actual thing will be our quickest ticket back to her place.

It’s entirely possible that I’m the worst boyfriend in the world. I don’t have a lot of experience, not that it’s an excuse. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that dating is about showering attention on a woman while she has her clothes on, because you like her and want to burrow yourself deeper in her life, and obviously you aren’t good enough for that, so you need to earn your way in.

And since this is Hailey and me, I’ve got a long fucking hill to climb, and I’m not good at this. I should be—it’s not far off from the shmoozing that I so unexpectedly took to like a fish to water when we moved to D.C. But the stakes are different with that. Those people need me more than I need them. There’s always another sorry loser fucking up his life.

With Hailey, the shoe is on the other foot. Any second, she’s going to realize I’m not good enough for her. That I’m a professional liar and a cheat, and no amount of financial or political security will make up for that in her eyes.

Just my luck to fall for a woman with an unwavering moral compass and the internal fortitude to walk away from wealth and power because it’s the right thing to do.

Of course, that she did that just makes me want her all the more.

She twists in front of me, swivelling her hips through the drunken crowd. She’s wearing dark jeans and knee-high boots with a sparkly tank top under a tiny jacket. I can’t keep my eyes off her.

On the dance floor, I grab her close and spin her around so my front is pressed against her back.

I grind my cock into her ass as she tips her head back against my shoulder. I want to hold her here forever. I get her for a minute before she spins away. As the music pulses through the air, she peels off her jacket, baring the long smooth expanse of her arms, golden pink under the dance floor lights. I grab the loose end of the jacket, reeling her in for a quick taste of her mouth.

“This isn’t dancing,” she says, her face still pressed to mine, close enough I can’t see the smile. But I can feel it.

“This is better,” I growl, banding my arms around her waist as she slides her fingers through the short hair at the back of my neck. I move us to the heavy thump of the music, my thigh sliding between her legs, and we kiss again, over and over again until she’s panting and I’m ready to find a dark corner.

But this is our first date, and I want to earn—legitimately, for once in my life—the right to a second. And a third. And a tenth. So when a couple beside us bump us apart, I keep the few inches of distance and actually start dancing.

This isn’t a bad move, because although I’d rather be kissing Hailey, I actually do know how to dance.

And she’s impressed, but so am I, because where I’ve got some moves, she’s got more, and they’re
good
.

She rolls her body, mirroring what I do, and we flow together, almost meeting at the hips each time before sliding away. I keep one hand on her at all times—my fingers grazing down her arm, then my other palm cupping her waist as she twists in the other direction.

Her gaze is glued on me. Always dark. Pleased, with an edge of wanting more. I can’t keep my eyes on hers, because the rest of her is shimmying in ways that jack up my blood pressure, but every time my roving gaze finds her face again, she’s still looking at me.

And her smile gets a little bit bigger. More teasing.

I spin her around, touching more of her now. She glances back at me over her shoulder, her hair swinging away. I can’t resist the bare neck, and I press my face into her slightly damp skin, tasting her briefly before pulling back. “Another drink?”

She nods, and I will my dick to hang on, but then she breathes four little words that make my night. “Back at my place?”

I have her out the door and in my waiting hired car before she can change her mind. I’ve never been more grateful for a privacy screen in my entire life. I tersely give the driver Hailey’s address before slamming the little sliding door shut and hauling her into my lap.

“Uhhhn,” she mumbles as I jerk her tank top up and her bra down, baring one breast. I kiss her hard on the mouth again before whispering that she needs to be quiet, then I dip my head and suck her nipple into my mouth in a harsh, hungry pull.

She pants my name, barely more than a breath, and it bounces around us in the quiet of the moving car. Up front, the driver is listening to something. Talk radio, maybe, or an ad. Outside, there’s end of the evening traffic noise.

But right here, it’s just Hailey and me, my name on her lips and my mouth on her body.

The nervous tension I’d been feeling is gone now, replaced by something more familiar—the need to possess her, to mark her soul as she’s marked mine.

“You were beautiful tonight, dancing for me.” I free her other breast and roll the second taut peak over my tongue, savouring the unique taste of her skin and the still fresh scent of her vanilla perfume. “You’re always fucking beautiful.”

“But you liked the dancing?” she whispers, sliding her hands over my shoulders, her words slurring slightly. “Maybe I’ll be your private dancer when we get up to my place.”

I chuckle and kiss the inside of her bare arm, pebbled with goosebumps. “Almost there. You want your jacket back on, drunk girl?”

“Nuh-uh.” She shakes her head vigorously as she fixes her bra and top. “I’m going to take them all off…soon enough anyways.”

She tips her head to the side, like she’s thinking about the words she just said and wondering if they made sense, and I kiss her cheek, then her mouth, because it’s right there.
 

The intoxicated cuteness continues on the slow, hip wiggling climb to her apartment, but as soon as the door closes behind her, she zips into efficiency-mode, going to the stereo on a bookshelf in her living room.

There she starts rifling through her CDs. She waves her hand over her shoulder. “You should take your clothes off, I might want to violate you after I find this album…”

I slowly strip off my dress shirt, but I leave my jeans on, and settle on the couch. I like this bossy, drunk Hailey. I’m not going to leave her in charge for long, but as long as she’s got a plan, I’m game to see where it goes.

She puts on some sultry R&B from the seventies and turns around, right hip cocked and her boobs deliberately on display.
 

“Close your eyes.”

“Seriously? I want to watch you strip for me.”

“Serious as a heart attack.” She smiles as she slowly unzips her jeans, then stops before I get to see the good stuff. “And I’m not going to strip for you, but if you’re a good boy, and close your peepers, I will dance for you.”

Her warm, husky laughter surrounds me as I drop my eyelids and tip my head back against the couch. I’ve wanted to see her use the pole for weeks. I’ll take it however she wants to dish it out. The music is a promise of something seriously good—better than good, because Hailey just hopping out of her jeans on a regular night is enough to get me hard.

She moves closer, warm air swirling around me, but then she’s gone again on another laugh, leaving me a frozen statue of barely contained sexual frustration. She could torture me for hours, but she doesn’t. Fabric rustles, then I hear a soft sound that I assume is her jeans hitting the floor a split second before she breathes the word I’ve been waiting for. “Open.”

I blink twice, taking her in. She’s wearing my shirt, barely buttoned, and her curvy legs are bare and she’s posed against the pole like a pin-up model.

Jesus. Blood rushes through my head on its way south to my cock. “Wow.”

She plumps her lips in a naughty-as-fuck pout as the music changes to something slightly more upbeat—and decidedly dirtier. As the singer sighs and moans her way through a chorus about motions and notions, Hailey steps around the pole, one hand holding on above her head, her body angled out and away. Her hair swings wide as she launches herself into the air, twisting one leg around the pole as she slides down, twirling effortlessly.

I can’t breathe.

My shirt. Flashes of white lace underneath. The music. Her damn smile.

“I’ve been thinking, Cole…” She drops, inch by inch, into the naughtiest squat I’ve ever seen and presses slowly onto her tiptoes before rising and circling the pole again.

Flying.

“This thing between us. Maybe I didn’t just want you to be my bad boy fling…” She bites her lip, and I just about lose my mind. Keeping my gaze glued on her painfully slow twirl around the pole, my shirt riding up on her hips, I ease my fly down and wrap my fist around my aching cock. She flips her hair over her shoulder as she glides her left foot up her right leg, stretching her thigh wide open and flashing those impossibly innocent panties at me. “Maybe I like being a little bad, too.”

Jesus. She’s going to kill me. “Take your panties off.”

She winks at me. “I will. When I’m ready.”

“I want to see your pussy.”

Another slow twirl, and this time when she comes around to face me, her free hand is working on the buttons of my shirt. “Why?”

“Because it’s beautiful.”

“Mmm. Try again.”

“It is,” I growl.

“What else?”

“Because it’s mine.” Her lips part and her eyes sparkle. Good. I stand and pace around the coffee table, stopping just short of her. “You’re mine. And if I tell you to show me how much you want me, you’ll do it.”

She slides her back against the pole, my shirt now fully open. Her breasts and belly jiggle as she works herself up and down, her mouth shiny and wet from her licking her lips. “And if I don’t obey you?”

I step closer. “You like being punished far too much.”

“I know,” she breathes as she drops again, one arm stretched above her head, her circled fingers controlling her descent on the pole. She stops with her mouth just inches from my throbbing dick. “It’s so naughty.”

Fuck. Me.
 

“You want this?” I jerk myself in front of her face and she nods, sticking out her tongue to catch a drop of pre-come.

“Yummy.”

I curse as I grab the pole above her and drive my cock into her eager mouth. She swallows me straight into her throat, her lips sealing around me as she sucks. Hard.

It’s too much and not enough at the same time. The perfect wet heat, the soft pulling of her mouth, begging for me to spill myself down her throat.