Lover Enraptured: Thieves of Aurion, Book 2 (14 page)

A ticklish sensation swirled at the base of his cock, and he reflexively flinched before letting his head fall back with an ungraceful thud as the feathery stroke painted the underside of his dick. “W-what is that?”

“A peacockian feather.” She made a lazy, sweeping gesture over the straining head of his shaft, tormenting him. “Hmm, who knew it’d be this much fun, teasing one cock with another?” Her wicked giggle threatened to do him in. When she tickled his balls, he strained against his bindings, a blue streak of curses tumbling forth. She nibbled his jaw. “I’ve dreamed similar scenarios to this one, but it was always you wielding the feather.”

His overheated flesh sizzled anew at her admission. “I tickled your clit with a feather?”

Her breath grew wispy. “Yes. It makes me wet just thinking about it.”

Even though he knew it would be the death of him, the demand edged past his teeth anyway. “Let me feel.”

“Your hands are bound.”

“Then release me or find another way to show me what that dream feather does to you.”

She fell into a deep silence. For the longest moment he convinced himself she wouldn’t yield to either of his suggestions. Then he detected the distinct rustle of her clothing. His pulse thudded at the captivating possibility that she stood before him naked. More than anything, he despised the encumbrance of the blindfold. He shifted his head, fruitlessly attempting to loosen the knot. “Take this thing off me.”

“No, it’s more thrilling this way.” She settled on his lap and started her torturous swishing of the feather again.

The anguished noise that escaped him sounded foreign to his own ears, as if some wild animal had crept into the room when he wasn’t looking and set up space in his body. “Avi, stop.”

She didn’t comply and instead soothed him with two fingers upon his lips. Her feminine musk filled his sinuses, making him punch drunk. She’d found a way to show him. The feral creature inhabiting him reappeared, and he lustily lapped at her fingers before sucking them into his mouth. She squirmed, her feather strokes on his cock and balls growing restless.

He nipped the pads of her fingers and let them slide free of his mouth. “Paint your nipples with your wetness.”

“But—”

“Do it.” He nuzzled her palm. “Please.”

“I should make you beg harder than that.”

He almost wept like a babe when her hand drifted from his face and the slick sound of her fingers slipping along her labia tantalized his ears. “My punishment is not getting to see you stroke yourself.”

“You like to watch me do that?”

There was no point in lying when the ramrod stiffness of his cock clearly ratted him out. “More than you could imagine.”

“Poor, Jer. I feel quite evil depriving you the sight. However will I make it up to you?”

“Your tits in my mouth would be an excellent start.”

“What a positively crude thing to say.”

“You know you love it.”

She sighed. “I do. I love everything about you. But you already know that.”

He tensed.

“It’s okay. I’m not looking to spoil the moment with silly professions of love that you don’t want to hear.”

He swallowed against the remorse congesting his windpipe. “Avi…”

“No more talk. I have a better use for your mouth.”

There was no way in hell his sweet girl just said that. It was so dirty. Profane. Fucking fantastic. She made it even better by dragging her nipple in a teasing glide over his lips. Groaning, he captured it between his teeth and flicked it with his tongue. She tasted of sunshine and her own sex. Ravenous for her, he suctioned his mouth over the whole of her nipple and drew on the turgid nub with strong pulls of his tongue. Her fingers raked over his scalp, creating a magnificent sting that he felt all the way to his testicles. The unrelenting feather dance along his cock spurred him to new heights. No way in hell he’d last much longer, but he wouldn’t come without her.

He treated her nipples to the same lush devotion he would her clit. There were some women who could climax this way, and he aimed to discover if Avi was one. He could have cheated and used his sex magic, but that felt as much an affront to his skills as using it to pick a lock. Flattening his tongue, he licked a slow lap around her puckered areola before once again worshipping her nipple with a deep, sensuous suckle. Her breath snared in her throat, and her hand drifted to his nape, fingers trembling. The feather fluttered on his cockhead the same instant she surged against him, shaking uncontrollably. With his mouth full of her soft breast, he pitched into a dazzling free fall of ecstasy with her. Her hand replaced the feather, squeezing jets of slippery come from him. He could only imagine the mess he was making of their bellies.

Grunting over that indisputable truth, he continued licking and kissing her nipples for as long as she’d allow him. He still grumbled in protest when she extracted herself from his mouth. A moment later she ran a cloth along his stomach, gently cleaning him of his sexual excess. The magnitude of what they’d done settled over him like a horsehair blanket, leaving him at a loss for words. And an abundance of uncertainties over what the hell to do next. They’d crossed a hazardous line in their partnership. There was no fooling himself that this had merely been training for their cover. Their lusty sex play was no fucking act. He knew it, and he had a bad feeling Avi did too.

She freed him of the wrist restraints, and he shoved the blindfold from his eyes. He drank in her naked form, unable to tear his gaze from her smooth, pale skin and rosy nipples. Breasts that still bore the visible burn from his beard bristles. At least she’d wiped his seed from her. Witnessing his come marking her likely would have resulted in him bending her over the bench and sealing his claim with a proper fucking.

She offered him a tremulous smile. “So, do I get the job?”

This is going to backfire on you.
Despite knowing that with every fiber of his being, he gave a resigned nod. “But no more training.”

He wouldn’t fucking survive it.

Chapter Thirteen

Hammond had done all of the tedious work prior to Jerrick’s arrival, which meant minimal time twiddling his thumbs while Hammond input the phony aliases into Tul’dea’s central mainframe.

A grunt fell from Hammond. “You must be running low on aliases to resort to the name
Bill
.”

“It’s short for Billiam.”

“Billiam? Shit, that’s even dopier.”

Jerrick stacked his arms over his chest and glared at his contact. “Funny, I don’t remember paying for your opinion.”

“You’re a crankier bastard than usual today. Which makes no sense if you ask me. Anyone who gets to be the boy toy of
Mistress Scarlett
should be the happiest son of a bitch on the planet.” There was no mistaking the ripe humor underscoring Hammond’s dry pronouncement.

“Trust me, I’m smiling inside.” Until he remembered the erotic interlude he and Avi had shared at Lover’s Knot the night before. A memory that’d refused to grant his mind a moment’s rest the last twelve-plus hours.

“I would be too.” Hammond enlarged Avily’s photo ID and gave an appreciative whistle. “In fact, I’d gladly beg for a good spanking if she was the one delivering it.”

You and me both.
And therein lay the problem. This was only a cover. Granted, one he and Avi had to make damn believable. And so far, they were doing a bang-up job of it. Yesterday, touching the woman who owned his every waking thought and desire, coming with her…he’d acknowledged the disturbing truth. He hungered for their relationship to be real. Everything within him desperately clung to the fantasy that she was his, that he could hold her, love her, until the last breath escaped his body.

He was literally handing all control over to Avi. If she stripped him of his defenses, his willpower, then what? He’d have nothing to fight his overwhelming need for her.

“You planning to sit here staring vacantly at me all day?”

Jerrick snapped from his stressful thoughts and blinked at Hammond. “What?”

“I know my looks are hypnotizing, but I’m already spoken for.”

Jerrick grunted. “She must have the patience of a saint.”

“No more so than me, waiting for you to deliver that damn promised Ginnish.”

“It’s in the mail.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get your charming ass outta here.”

Heeding Hammond’s surly demand, Jerrick collected his paperwork and saluted a goodbye before heading for the exit. He checked the time on his com. Less than twenty minutes before he was due to meet Avi for lunch. He’d talked her into the convenient, neutral location of the Twisted Thorn.

Realistically, any place that didn’t come with the tempting accompaniment of a nice soft bed was win-win in his book. He just prayed he’d be able to sit next to her without dwelling on the sinful taste of her pussy-flavored nipples.

Yeah, like that was going to fucking happen.

Miracle of miracles, he found an available parking spot in the restaurant’s lot. As he hit the locks, his gaze automatically drifted to the shady corner where his captors had sent him to his knees with the electrolizer gun. In his quest to gain entrance to Rapture, he’d momentarily put his determination to bring a world of hurt down on those motherfuckers’ heads on the backburner. But he would make them pay. Not for what they’d done to him. For threatening Avi.

The danger he’d inadvertently placed her in was a cold reminder of why he had to keep his hands off her. Because he cared for her, he had to protect her. Even from himself.

Especially from himself.

Clutching that determination tight, he crossed the lot and entered the restaurant. He spotted Avi at the same table she’d been parked at the fateful night his world imploded. Unlike then, there was no assclown in an atrocious orange shirt to cramp his style.

He slid in next to her in the booth, using their need for privacy as an excuse to pull her close to his side and brush his lips near her ear. “Did I keep you waiting?”

“Yes. You have a nasty habit of doing that.”

He gave her a mock frown. “What the devil are you talking about? I was always punctual for every single job.”

“Only because I made sure to sync your com with mine and send you a minute-by-minute reminder.”

“Ah yes.” He nodded enthusiastically. “You were a pain in the ass when it came to that.”

She pinched his thigh. Hard. Even that gesture got his cock twitching. “Speaking of jobs, we haven’t talked about this mysterious one I’m helping you with. Don’t you think we should get around to that?”

Shit. Maybe he should have dragged her off to bed. At least it would have distracted her from this sticky topic. “I already told you I don’t have the details to give.”

“Well at least tell me if that line you fed Madam Love was total horseshit.”

“What, you mean my team of secret operatives?”

She cocked an eyebrow. “I thought they were undercover operatives.”

“That too.”

“Gods, you’re so full of BS.”

“It’s what makes me a damn good thief. And you, once upon a time.”

For some reason, his words made her smile. “Is that a compliment, Jer?”

“You know it is. Aside from my brother, you were the best partner I ever had.” Foolish as it was, his heart pinched remembering the closeness they’d shared while working a heist. He was damn glad she’d gotten out of the life, but it didn’t mean he didn’t miss her.

She twitched her nose. “Last time I checked, Dash and I were the
only
partners you had. Second best doesn’t make me much of anything.”

“I never said you were second best.”

Her smile this go-around threatened to blind him. Her cheeks flushed with some strange happiness, she averted her gaze and took a sip of her water. “Flattering me won’t get you out of the hot seat. I still want to know more about this job. What is it that we’re really supposed to steal?”

“You don’t believe I’m after Francesca’s art collection?”

“No.”

He’d suspected she wouldn’t fall for the story he’d concocted for Madam Love’s benefit, but it would have been damn easier if she had. Left with little recourse than to give her the partial truth, he filled her in on Casper Winston and the man’s missing research. He made sure to make no mention of the events that’d led to him signing on as acquisition engineer.

“What exactly is the research you’re supposed to lift?”

“That’s part of the detail I don’t have.”

Avily’s expressive eyebrows dipped low. “You don’t know what it is, but you’re going to steal it anyway? That’s not like you, Jer.”

Knowing he was walking a tricky tightrope that could topple him any moment, he gauged the answers he could give without making her too suspicious. “They offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse.”

That at least wasn’t a lie. Her safety was worth any asking price.

She fell into a contemplative silence. Worried she’d latch on to more questions he didn’t want to volley, he waved the waitress over and put in an order for a Ginnish with a chaser of Strasser’s Ale.

The second the waitress departed, Avi pinned him with the full weight of her prodding stare, earning his silent groan. He should have known she wouldn’t give up that easily.