Chapter 16: As Jay's fingers explore her wet heat, Emily arches against him with a moan, grinding her bare pussy against his thigh while their tongues duel hungrily. The motel sheets twist around them as she pants 'Fuck waiting' and guides his thick erection to her entrance, ignoring his growl of protest about his injury.
The first thing she felt was the solid warmth of him, the steady rhythm of his heart under her palm. Morning had crept in through the broken slats of the blinds, painting the room in dusty stripes of gold. Emily didn’t move. She let herself exist in the unfamiliar peace of waking up pressed against the length of Jay’s body, her back to his chest, his arm a heavy weight around her ribs. His breath stirred her hair.
The silence was different. Not the anxious quiet of the safe house or the brittle stillness of her bedroom in the compound. This was thick, drowsy, loaded with the memory of the night before—the taste of his mouth, the shocking rightness of his hands on her skin, the words that had finally been spoken aloud.
She shifted slightly, turning within the circle of his arm to face him. He was still asleep, the hard planes of his face softened, the scar on his cheek a pale ridge in the weak light. The dark fan of his lashes looked almost delicate. This was the Jay no one else saw. The one she’d only glimpsed through a doorway, tangled in sheets.
Her gaze drifted down. The thin motel blanket was pooled around his waist. The bandage on his thigh was stark white against his skin. Without thinking, she reached out and traced the edges of the dressing with a feather-light touch, following the memory of the wound beneath, the heat of his blood on her hands in the car.
His hand moved. It wasn’t a startle, but a slow, deliberate slide from her ribs down over the curve of her hip. His fingers spread, pressing her closer. She realized he was awake. His eyes were still closed, but his breathing had changed.
“Does it hurt?” she whispered, her finger still resting on the bandage.
“Not enough,” he murmured, his voice sleep-roughened. He opened his eyes. They were dark, unguarded, watching her with a focus that made the air in the room seem thin.
Her hand left his leg and traveled up, over the hard muscle of his abdomen, the smattering of dark hair, the raised ink of the dragon that coiled around his ribs. She felt him tense, then consciously relax under her exploration. This was hers now. All of it.
She leaned in, her lips brushing the shell of his ear. “When this heals,” she breathed, the words forming with a certainty that thrilled her, “I’m going to ride you. I’m going to sink down on your cock so fucking slow you’ll beg me to move. I’m going to use you until I can’t think straight.”
A sharp, punched-out groan escaped him. His eyes slammed shut again, his head pushing back into the pillow. His hand on her hip clenched, the bite of his fingers a sweet pain. “Emily…”
“You wanted to know why I did it that morning? On the pills?” She licked the cord of his neck, tasting salt and sleep. “Because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About how you’d feel in my mouth. How hard you’d get for me. I wanted to own that. I wanted you to wake up knowing my mouth had been on you.”
“Christ.” The word was a ragged prayer. His other hand came up, tangling in her hair, not guiding, just holding on.
She kissed a path down his chest, her tongue darting into the hollow at the base of his throat. The blanket was in her way. She hooked her fingers into it and tugged it down, exposing him fully.
The morning light caught him. He was already half-hard, lying thick against his thigh. She wrapped her fingers around him, feeling the weight, the heat, the swift pulse of blood under silk-soft skin as he hardened completely in her grip. She remembered the feel of him, the taste, but this was different. This was daylight and permission and a hunger she didn’t have to hide.
She looked up at his face. He was watching her now, his eyes black with need, his jaw so tight it looked like it might crack. A faint sheen of sweat glossed his collarbones.
“You’re not on pills now,” she said, her voice low and steady. “You’re going to feel every second of this. And you’re going to remember it’s me.”
She lowered her head.
Her tongue lapped a broad, wet stripe from the base of his cock to the tip. He jerked, a full-body spasm, his hips coming off the mattress. She pressed a hand flat on his stomach, pinning him down. “Don’t,” she said. “Just feel it.”
She took him into her mouth.
He cried out, a raw, broken sound that echoed off the cheap walls. His hands fisted in the sheets. She worked him slowly, meticulously, using everything she’d learned from the desperate, secret time before. She hollowed her cheeks, sucked hard, traced the prominent vein with her tongue. She reveled in the salty-bitter taste of him, the way his breath came in sharp gasps, the way his muscles trembled under her restraining hand.
“Fuck… fuck, Emily, please…” He was babbling, his head thrashing side to side on the pillow.
She released him with a wet pop, her own breath coming fast. She slid up his body, straddling his hips, careful of his wounded leg. His cock, slick from her mouth, stood rigid between them. She could feel her own dampness soaking through the cotton of his t-shirt she still wore, a sharp, embarrassing thrill.
She gripped him, positioned the blunt head at her entrance. She watched his face as she began to lower herself.
The stretch was breathtaking, a glorious, burning fullness that made her eyes roll back. She took him inch by agonizing inch, her inner muscles fluttering, adjusting. He was bigger than she remembered from her clumsy, dreaming fantasies. More real.
When she was fully seated, when he was buried to the hilt inside her, they both went utterly still. Connected. Her chest was heaving. His hands came up to grip her thighs, his thumbs digging into her flesh.
“Look at me,” he gritted out.
She forced her eyes open, forced her gaze to meet his. The intensity there was a physical blow. There was no cold operative, no respectful guard. There was just Jay, laid bare, utterly consumed by her.
“It’s you,” he rasped, as if answering a question she hadn’t asked. “It’s always been you.”
That shattered her.
A sob ripped from her throat. She began to move.
It wasn’t graceful. It was frantic, primal, a collision of hips and sweat and muffled cries. She rode him with a desperate fury, each downward slam driving a grunt from his chest. His hands moved from her thighs to her hips, his grip brutal, helping her set a punishing rhythm. The headboard began a steady, rhythmic thump against the wall.
“Harder,” he growled, his voice unrecognizable. “Use me. Fucking use me, Emily.”
She did. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his shoulders, driving herself down onto him with a force that bordered on violence. The pleasure was a white-hot coil tightening deep in her belly, fed by the sounds he made, by the sight of his total unraveling beneath her. His tattoos shifted with the strain of his muscles. A drop of sweat traced the line of his scar.
“I’m close… Jay, I’m…”
“Come,” he commanded, his eyes blazing into hers. “Come on my cock. Let me feel it.”
His words, so filthy, so direct, triggered her collapse. The coil snapped. Pleasure detonated through her, wave after wave of blinding, shattering intensity. She clenched around him, her cry swallowed by the damp skin of his shoulder as she fell against him.
The vice-like grip of her orgasm pulled him over the edge. With a guttural shout, he drove up into her one last, searing time and held there, pulsing deep inside her as he came. His release was hot, seemingly endless, a flood of possession that had her whimpering through the aftershocks.
She collapsed, a boneless weight on top of him. The room was filled with the sound of their ragged breathing, the smell of sex and sweat. The thumping headboard fell silent.
Minutes passed. The sun climbed higher, the stripes of light warming their tangled legs.
Jay’s hand moved slowly up and down her spine. His heart hammered against her ear.
Eventually, he spoke, his voice a wreck. “We need to move. Check out’s in an hour. Need to find a different car.”
The real world, with its dangers and its deadlines, seeped back in. But it felt different now. It felt shared.
She pushed herself up, wincing at the tender ache between her legs, at the sticky mess on her inner thighs. He was watching her, his expression a complex mix of sated hunger and grim focus.
“Okay,” she said, her voice hoarse. She slid off him, her legs unsteady. She stood, the t-shirt clinging to her damp skin. “I’ll get cleaned up. You should re-wrap that bandage.”
She walked to the bathroom, feeling his eyes on her every step. She closed the door, leaned against it, and pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. A hysterical laugh fought with a sob in her chest. She had just fucked Jay Tanaka in a roadside motel. She had told him she would ride him, and then she had. And the world hadn’t ended.
It had just gotten infinitely more complicated, and more beautiful, and more terrifying.
She turned on the shower. The water would be lukewarm at best. As it began to steam, she peeled the t-shirt over her head. Her reflection in the fogging mirror was flushed, her lips swollen, her hair a wild tangle. She looked like someone else. She looked like herself.
From the other room, she heard the rustle of the first-aid kit, the low curse as he tended his wound. The mundane sounds of survival. They were in it together now, all the way down. There was no envelope left in any closet. There was only the road ahead, the ledger in the duffel bag, and the raw, terrifying truth they’d finally carved into each other’s skin.
She stepped under the spray, letting the water sluice the sweat and the scent of him from her body. It was a futile exercise. She knew she’d carry the feeling of him inside her for hours. Maybe forever.
They had an hour. Then they would run again. But for the first time, running felt like a direction, not just an escape.