Off the Edge (The Associates) (29 page)

“You’re okay,” he said softly.

“How can you say that? Look!” She held up the mug as if it was proof.

So this was her falling apart. It was always the little things that put people over.

“Here.” He tried to take it from her fingers, but she clutched it, looking wild. How had he not seen this coming? Dax would’ve seen it miles away.

He knelt in front of her and put his hands on her knees. “It’s just a plant, Laney. It means nothing.”

“
It means nothing.
What a shocker that you’d say that.” She stood, nearly pushing him over, and stormed to the window with the thing.

He watched her, wobbled. “Away from the window,” he warned.

She let out an exasperated huff and went to stand in the corner, cradling the little coffee mug with the broken plant.

“You’re okay. You’re not going back,” he said, secretly stung by her words.
It means nothing. What a shocker you’d say that.
It was true, things hadn’t meant much since the train bombing.

“I tried to save her,” she said.

“You did save her.”

“Does she look saved to you?” She hurled it across the room, mug and everything. The ceramic thunked against the wall. Dirt sprayed. She wrapped her arms around herself, sobbing, sucking in desperate breaths, well on her way to hyperventilating.

He crossed the room, feeling panicky; he grabbed her shoulders. “Stop it.”

She shook her head, lost in her misery. “There was never any use.”

“Don’t say that!” He cupped her cheeks and forced her face to him, but she wouldn’t give him her eyes. “You are not that plant,” he said. “It’s not you. It’s not us. Look at me!”

She shook her head. Well, she was hearing him. Enough to disagree, at least.

“You’re right here, Laney. You’re with me.”

She stared off to the side, eyes puffy, nose red.

He smoothed his hands over her shoulders. “You’re okay.”

She pushed at him half-heartedly. “Fuck off.”

“Stop it.” He needed her to stop. He needed her to be with him in this. “That plant was defenseless and alone and doomed, and you stepped in to save it. Because you’re powerful and resourceful. You’re nobody’s victim.”

She looked over where Amy lay.

He wiped a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “You’re not Amy.”

She scrubbed her face and pasted on a fake smile. She was so beautiful, even fake smiling. “Happy now?”

“I’m not happy at all.” He would be happy if she were out of danger. He would be happy if he could love her the way the old Peter could’ve. “Do you want a drink of water?” he tried.

“No, I don’t want a drink of
water
.” She grabbed his shirt and shoved at him. “I want you to fuck off.”

“I won’t fuck off.” His lips landed on her forehead. “I won’t ever fuck off, okay?” He kissed a tear off her cheek.

She stayed completely still. Like she didn’t want him there. His entire being clenched in agony.

“Come on, Laney.” He kissed a tear off her jawbone, tipped his forehead to hers. “You’re okay.”

“Stop saying that.” She still had hold of his shirt. She wasn’t pushing him away, but she wasn’t exactly pulling him.

He pressed his forehead to hers, panting, his nose to her nose. Then he bent his knees, lowering himself to kiss her straight on, pressing his body to hers. She felt soft, pliant. But she didn’t kiss him back.

He angled his head and kissed her maybe too hard—he felt desperate to have her with him. Like a madman he pulled her closer, putting his cheek to hers, losing himself in the heat of her skin. He kissed her ear, her jaw, her neck, rough kisses on the tenderest parts. He pulled her so close her arms were smashed between them, killing his rib. Not that he cared.

He became aware of her moving, shaking her head.

He pulled away. “Do you want me to stop?”

She closed her eyes. She seemed so helpless, suddenly. What the hell was he doing?

He drew his lips to her closed eye and kissed the swell of her eyeball, a kiss like a feather, as if to prove how under control he was. “Do you want me to stop?” he panted.

“I don’t want you to stop.” She opened her eyes, brave and brown and shot through with gold. “I want you to mean it,” she said. “Please just mean it.”

Mean it.
A jolt of fear shot through him and he cupped her cheeks.

Mean it.

“It’s not in me anymore,” he confessed. “What you want. What you need.”

Her gaze softened. “That’s such bunk, Devilwell.”

Deep down she had to know—he’d told her as much, how everything fell away, all the good parts of him. He hated that it was true.

He shoved his fingers deep into her hair, cradling her head, watching her eyes all the way until he claimed her mouth. Maybe there was nothing good left in him and no heart, either, but he would give her all of it. All of the wreckage, all of the words.

She mumbled something into the kiss as she wrapped her arms around him, grinding against him. “More,” she whispered. “I want more of you.”

He let out a gusty breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He grabbed her ass and lifted her clear up, slamming her onto the wall, letting her feel the way he was shivering inside, because he was falling for her. He pressed his steel-hard cock into the cleft between her legs, crushing his mouth over hers. “If I can’t be inside you I’ll die,” he gasped.

She grabbed his hair and yanked his head away from hers. “That works.”

He stared at her, emotions on overload.

She smiled, and he crushed his mouth over hers as if to devour that smile and all of her joy. Everything.

“Uh,” she breathed, voice heavy with desire. He could get drunk just off the sound of her saying
Uh
.

“Maxwell,” she whispered.

“Peter,” he said. “My name is Peter.”

“Peter,” she said, with that pan-southern twang of hers. His heart nearly broke to hear it.

She tightened her legs around him. “
Peter, come ‘ere.”

But he was already there. And he had to bury his face against her salty-sweet neck to hide the rawness of it all.

Peter.

That name was real.
Peter
.

He kissed her neck, ferociously almost, as he walked her to the bed.

He threw her down over the mess she’d made of the quilt. “I need you naked. Beneath me. Now.” He didn’t wait for her to comply; feverishly he pulled off her dress, and she wriggled and helped him, then he took off her underwear, so that she was naked except for the knee-highs.

Her heart pounded.
Peter
. She propped herself up on her elbows.

He wore boxers and he pushed them down, freeing his golden cock, primitive and thickheaded, as though some force of nature had sent extra cave-man essence to that part of his body. It was darker near the head and totally hot.

He pulled off his glasses. This wasn’t the controlled Maxwell of their first encounter who took his glasses off slowly and wanted to talk about the word
fuck
. This was a new man. She found this new man frightening and exciting and real as hell.

She scooted away, desperate for him to come to her with that loose, fierce passion.

That glint of humor was gone. Peter was serious, eyes shadowed, mouth in a strong line, bright white tape binding his chest.

She slid a finger under one of the knee-high socks. “And these?” He had a thing about them. He loved them.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Say it again,” he grated. “Say it.”

Peter
, he meant. His real name. “Peter.”

Something new came into his eyes. He was shining and brilliant. He crawled over the bed to her, just him and his primitive cock. She thought she’d lose it right there—Peter, crawling to her like a beast.

She closed her eyes and tipped back her head, baring her neck, wanting to feel him coming over her, to feel him take her like a lion. She would give him everything now. He didn’t understand how cracked open she was.

He crawled over her until his hands were on either side of her. She gloried in the way his movement stirred the humid air, causing ghostly wisps of cool to kiss her bare, sweat-drenched skin. Her nipples felt rock hard, straining to be touched. He stilled, a predator surveying the full panorama of his feast.

And then he lowered his head and kissed her with unforgiving strength that sent waves of pleasure clear down through her belly. She lay back and grabbed his steely, sweaty forearms as he plundered her mouth, lowering himself, moving against her.

She loved the roughness of his chest hairs against her breasts, the feel of his cock pressing at her belly, and the sweaty weight of him.

He planted kisses on the tender skin below her ear, nearly sending her into oblivion. Again he pressed his lips to that spot, as if to drink up her racing pulse. She tightened her grip on his forearms as he kissed an unrelenting downward line, sending rich rays of feeling into her overheated core.

When he reached her breast, he took her nipple between lips hard as teeth, sucking and tonguing, feasting on her as he slid his cock against her slick folds.

But really, she was the one feasting, and she would never be sated. She moved under him, panting, burning for more.

He pulled away, stood on the edge of the bed.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

He devoured her with his eyes, letting his fingers play lightly on her ankles.

Nowhere
, she thought, in answer to her own question. He slid his hands up and down the length of her calves, and then he gripped her ankles—hard—and yanked her across the bedspread to him so that she was laid out before him. He gave her a dark look, just a little bit savage, and bent over her, planting hot, wet kisses on her sweaty thighs.

Like a man possessed, he shoved apart her thighs and put his mouth to her sex, prowling her sensitive folds with his tongue and teeth.

“Yes,” she whispered, grabbing fistfuls of golden hair. He’d been so verbal before, fucking her half with words, but this was just raw.

When he plundered her with his fingers, she bucked under him, tightening her grip on his hair.

“Careful of Bolivia,” he grated.

“Oh,” she smoothed her hands over his hair. “Poor Bolivia.”

He rose up, sliding his fingers over her mound, fingering her tender folds. “Bolivia is already feeling better.”

She raised up her hips, wanting him inside her. Even just his fingers again. He slipped one in, then two, spreading her wetness around.

“Peter,” she said.

“You are so hot when you’re right on the verge like that.” He fucked her with his fingers, possessing her. “What do you want? Tell me what you want.”

“You. More,” she said as he slowed. “Faster.” She gasped as he pulled his hand away. “No…”

He reached over and fumbled with his clothes on the floor, pulling up something crinkly.

“Oh, good,” she said.

It was a bit of a jokey thing to say—
oh, good
—like somebody had brought out ice cream treats, but there was nothing sweet or sugary here.

He knelt between her legs and put on the condom, eyes intense and feral. “You are so…” He slid his hands around her belly, up and down her thighs, hitting her stockings. “So…”

She took it as a compliment, when he didn’t have a word.

“Comere, Peter.”

He came back over her, still with that serious look.

This
, she thought.
This
.

He pushed apart her thighs, letting his penis slide against her slippery folds. Then he pressed the fat tip of his cock into her, filling her slowly, as if to wring out every bit of feeling. It was almost too much and she moved under him, urging him on, but he clamped his hands onto her thighs, holding her in place, forcing her to wait, to have him slowly. “I don’t want to hurt—”

“You won’t.”

He stayed slow and strong, pushing deeper, keeping control of her thighs, moving in and out, kindling the sparks hotter.

She felt desperate and wild and she grabbed his ass, giving him her fingernails. “C’mon, fuck me, Peter.”

A whoosh of breath, and he thrust deeper, harder, hair swinging over her, brushing her cheeks.

“Yes,” she said, kissing him. “Fuck me.”

He thrust into her all the way then, taking her lips in a brutal kiss. He felt so massive in her—the feeling of him reached clear up to her eyes, and he fucked her hard now.

“I know I said it right that time.” She dug her nails into his ass, arching her back, urging him on. “I want you to fuck me forever,” she said.

He grabbed her calves and bent her legs up so that her heels smashed into her own ass, and he pushed into her more deeply.

She let out a strangled cry. “Like that.”

“I’ll fuck you in every way you want,” he whispered, warm in her ear. “I’ll devour you if you let me.”

She panted, dizzy from the savage friction of it. “Do it, do it.”

He fucked her raggedly, planting sloppy, frantic kisses on her neck, then her shoulder, and then he bit her there, like he needed to hold on to her with his mouth, like an animal or something. The pain was a kind of wild pleasure, spearing through her as he drove into her.

He was fully out of control.

So was she—spinning, falling, holding on. From out of nowhere her orgasm grabbed her like a fist, shaking all the sense out of her and spinning her around until she was just stars and breath and a man coming inside her.

He cried out. Something senseless.

She lay in his arms after, and tucked a bit of blond hair behind his ear. There was so much she wanted to say, but just then his phone sounded. He snatched it off the bedside table. “Yeah.” His face fell as he listened to whatever the muffled voice was saying. “Yeah,” he said softly, clicking off.

“What is it?”

He kissed her on the nose. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

“The prison recordings—”

“Just a setback.”

“You can’t get them.”

“No, but it’s okay. We’ll get out of this,” he whispered. “The answer’s there somewhere, I just have to find it.”

“I know you will, Peter.”

He stilled, and all at once she saw it—that his name was a tender gift. Like a key to him. He kissed her and then he turned over and put on his glasses. He lay there naked on his stomach, ass pale as ivory, mind back to his weapon and his wordy science. “I have to pull my mind back together.”