Willing Victim: Remastered Read online

  Fall in love with me.

  “You keep—looking at me like that—and I swear—I’ll let you wear the pants—any night you want.”

  She froze in mid-stroke, holding him still, locked deep inside her body. She grinned down at his sweaty face. “Beg me.”

  “Laurel.”

  “Beg me and I’ll make you come so hard you’ll lose your fucking mind.”

  He sounded as though he already had. “Please. Fuck me, please.”

  She eased her pussy off his cock then claimed his hard length again, rough.

  “God, fuck. Please, Laurel.”

  “Fall in love with me.” Horror slapped her in the face as the words tumbled from her subconscious into the air between them.

  “I will,” he grunted, still panting, still lost in the fucking.

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  He laughed. “Fine. But you keep treating me the way you have been, and I will. Whether you like it or not.” He groaned. “But I won’t say it in the middle of getting my brains fucked out, so relax.”

  She didn’t reply, just kept her body moving as her mind overheated. As always, he could read her. Her fears stacked up like bricks between them but he took the wheel. He flipped them over, gave her the reassurance of the bed against her back and his weight on her body, the relief of not being in charge.

  “Come for me, sweetheart.” He braced his weight on one arm so he could slip his other hand between them and tease her clit. “Come for me.”

  “Make it rough.”

  He did, and when she came apart it was from his strength, his smell, his heat, the shock of that extraordinary body laboring above her. He chased her release with his own, racing home in a greedy rush, his moans filling her ears.

  “Fuck,” was all he said, and as Laurel couldn’t sum it up any better, she concurred.

  “Fuck indeed.”

  For a long time they lay side by side, fingers twined, breaths steadily slowing, skin cooling. Then he sat up, letting go of her hand. “Get dressed.”

  His tone didn’t worry her. She wasn’t getting the boot. She left the bed and found her panties, tugged them up her legs. Her wrists were rubbed pink, same as her ankles, and though she didn’t relish explaining it to Anne, she knew she’d miss that color when it faded.

  Flynn was also dressing, and they pulled their shirts on in unison.

  She looked to him expectantly.

  “Shoes,” he said.

  “Okay. Any clues, here?”

  “Nope. Use the can and grab yourself a beer.”

  She did as she was told, emerging to find him waiting near the exit, keys in hand and a fleece throw slung over his arm.

  “Late night picnic?” she asked.

  “Not exactly. Hold this,” he said, handing her the blanket.

  “What, then?”

  “Patience, sub shop girl.”

  She rolled her eyes but followed him out into the hall. He headed for the elevator only to surprise her, passing it and hauling open the door to the stairwell. He surprised her further when he led her up the steps, not down.

  “O-kay.”

  Up one flight to the sixth floor, and up one more, into darkness. He paused to fiddle with his key ring, switching on a tiny flashlight. Its bright LED beam bounced up the last of the steps, to where the stairs ended at a landing before a metal door. An open padlock was hooked through a latch above the handle. Flynn slid it free, tucked it into his back pocket.

  The door swung open with a soft whine and Laurel found herself staring out across the old factory’s vast roof. Flynn helped her navigate a steep step down, their shoes alighting on gritty tarpaper.

  “This is quite a liability,” she said, looking around.

  “It’s supposed to be kept locked,” Flynn said, “but the maintenance guy smokes like a chimney up here. It’d only slow him down. C’mon.”

  He led her to the far edge, the side facing northwest—downtown. He took the blanket from her and lay it on the ground, and waved an arm to invite her to sit.

  She did and he sat beside her, hip to hip. Laurel held her bottle and gazed out across the city lights, and neither of them spoke for a long time.

  It was one of those sultry summer evenings when the temp probably wouldn’t drop below the mid-eighties, but it felt good. The breeze caressed her bare arms like a lover’s sweet nothings—warm and wistful, raising goosebumps. South Boston bustled six stories below, peppering the night with the far-off honk of a car, the rattle of a bus, the whir of a hundred air conditioners.

  After a sip of her beer, Laurel asked, “Why are we up here?”

  “To find out how we do.”

  “How we do…?”

  “How we do, outside of that bed. How we are with each other. Who we are with each other.”

  “All right. And who are you, just now?”

  “Just a guy. On a roof. What about you?”

  “Just a woman. Kinda giddy. Kinda…I dunno. I feel funny.”

  “Like?”

  “High? Weird, but in a nice way. Tiny and exposed and…naked. Up here.”

  “Left your sweater downstairs, huh?”

  She nodded, tipped the bottle to her lips again. “I think I like it.”

  “You freaked yourself out, didn’t you, saying what you did, in bed? When you told me to fall in love with you?”

  Her cheeks burned. “It just slipped out.”

  “I’ve said way more messed up shit to you when we’re fucking.”

  “Yeah, but that’s different. That’s role-playing.”

  “You think you were gonna scare me off?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t be. Only thing that scares me is airplanes.”

  “I can’t help it. My worries shout louder than my common sense.”

  He nodded. “That’s fair.”

  “I’m… I get like that sometimes,” she admitted. “I get scared, when I start to care. Caring feels like standing on the ledge of this building, almost. Dangerous. Or precarious.” Dizzying, as well, with a hell of a view. “You should know going into whatever this is, I’m hardwired for depression. I keep busy and I hold it at bay most of the time, but my head can be my own worst enemy. Not always, but sometimes. It comes in waves.”

  “You ever been suicidal?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t feel despair, when I’m sad. Just…emptiness. I don’t make the best friend when I’m in that space, and I doubt I’d make a great girlfriend.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “I just want you to know, after what you went through with Robbie.”

  “Thanks. But the way I look at it, not every day’s gonna be eighty degrees and sunny. That just ain’t possible. And I’m not gonna run at the first sign of storm clouds.”

  If only it felt that simple when Laurel was going through a dark patch… Still, a charming little philosophy.

  After a short silence she asked, “What do you feel, when you’re boxing?”

  “Chemicals,” he said simply.

  “Not emotions?”

  “Not in the ring. They only mess you up. All I feel in there is adrenaline and bloodlust.”

  “Sounds…pure.”

  “It is. Fighting and sex. Only drugs I need.”

  “Maybe I need to find that thing. That thing that shuts my brain up.” The role-playing had that power. She wanted to keep exploring that, but maybe there was another way to get there, something she could do on her own. Running or drawing or spin class or meditation. Something she could lose herself in, blessedly thoughtless.

  Flynn moved, shuffling to sit behind her, splaying his legs out in a V and wrapping his arms around her waist. She felt the sweet rasp of his jaw at her temple, breathed in the now familiar scent of his skin.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “For this.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Or actually,” he said, squeezing her tighter, “be as ridiculous as you want. I’ll keep buying you beer and drivin
g your ass home.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Now might be a good time to try out that mouth guard.”

  Another squeeze.

  “You bring all your conquests up here?” she asked.

  “Only the ones who cook me chicken pot pie.”

  “Hm.”

  “You staying the night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  Laurel sighed, dropping her head back against his shoulder to stare up into the darkness, finding it disappointingly deserted. A plane blinked its way across the sky, but light pollution muted whatever grand show the heavens might be putting on.

  “Feels like there ought to be stars out, on a night like this.”

  “There are,” he said, pointing toward Boston and its countless glittering lights. “Better than stars, even.”

  Miles away, Fenway was still lit, a distant purple glow. The city seemed at once vast and tiny from here. The fact that the two of them had found each other in this big brick maze was really quite remarkable. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. This manmade galaxy was magic enough.

  “Feel better?”

  “I do, thanks. That stuff with my mom… It just hits me, sometimes.”

  “Sure. Family’s a mind-fuck. Trust me, I know. Plus everything we’ve been doing, it takes a lot out of you. You’re stripping yourself bare, way, way down past your clothes.”

  That was true, she supposed. She’d submitted to his appetites and his will, spread her body and mind and heart wide open and welcomed him inside. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if some old vulnerabilities slipped out. The price of admission, really.

  “I’m supposed to tell you,” Flynn said, “there’s gonna be a party next Sunday on Castle Island, for Kayla’s birthday. Barbecue. Heather said you’re welcome as long as you bring a side.”

  “You want me to come?”

  “I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t. And like you said about your depression, probably best if you know what you’re getting yourself into from the get-go. Our family’s an acquired taste.”

  “Nothing a couple beers can’t remedy, I’m sure. I’ll bring potato salad.” Plus a helping of cautious optimism, because this felt very much like girlfriend territory. A few more invites like this one and Laurel might find herself in the market for a second toothbrush.

  For a long time they sat without speaking, the sounds and smells of the city washing over them. Laurel felt her worries grow lighter, lighter, until they were nothing more than dandelion fluff, slipping away, caught on the sultry breeze. The storm clouds roll in, the storm clouds roll out. And as her mind quieted, her body grew restless.

  She turned her head, temple brushing his cheek. “Let’s go back down.”

  “You cold?”

  “No.” Far from it. “I want you to take me to bed.”

  “Do you now?”

  “Show me more of what you like.” Take me way down deep into the dark. Help me find some new piece of myself there.

  He stood and helped her to her feet, and they gathered the blanket and bottle and crossed the roof hand in hand.

  The things this man craved could be blacker than the sky above them, rough enough to bruise and sharp enough to sting.

  And tonight they were hers to give. Hers alone.

  About the Author

  Since she began writing in 2008, Cara McKenna has published nearly forty romances and erotic novels with a variety of publishers, sometimes under the pen names Meg Maguire and C.M. McKenna. Her stories have been acclaimed for their smart, modern voice and defiance of convention. She was a 2015 RITA Award finalist, a 2014 RT Reviewers’ Choice Award winner, a 2012 and 2011 RT Reviewers’ Choice Award nominee, and a 2010 Golden Heart Award finalist. She lives with her husband and son in the Pacific Northwest, though she’ll always be a Boston girl at heart.

  Cara loves hearing from readers!

  @caramckenna

  authorcaramckenna

  www.caramckenna.com

  [email protected]

  Also by Cara McKenna

  After Hours

  Curio and the Curio Vignettes

  Hard Time

  Her Best Laid Plans

  Shivaree: The Complete Series

  Skin Game

  Strange Love: Remastered Tales

  Unbound

  The Sins in the City series

  Crosstown Crush

  Downtown Devil

  The Desert Dogs series

  Lay It Down

  Give It All

  Drive It Deep

  Burn It Up

  As C.M. McKenna

  Badger

  As Meg Maguire

  Caught on Camera

  Headstrong

  The Reluctant Nude

  Thank You for Riding

  Trespass

  The Wedding Fling

  Wild Holiday Nights

  The Wilinski’s series

  All or Nothing

  Going the Distance

  Takedown