Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)(49)

“You didn’t think we were already done, did you?”

“I was hoping not,” I reply.

His grin turns rakish as he starts walking toward the hallway that leads to the bedrooms.

A single, unwanted thought passes through my mind, that maybe he’s right. Scratching an itch can turn it into an open wound.

I grip tighter to his neck and let him carry me away.





RECKLESS


Fionn



As often happens when I’m around Rose, there’s one question that wraps its tentacles around every other thought I have:

What the fuck am I doing?

It takes on a thousand meanings. What am I doing taking my patient to my bedroom? What am I doing fucking my friend? What am I doing—I swore I was going to stay away from relationships. A friendship is a relationship. There are rules in place, sure, but why the fuck am I not ending this before we start? I could have at least waited until the haze of lust had cleared so we could talk about this like two rational adults.

What the fuck am I doing?

I know what I’m not doing.

I’m not fucking stopping.

Not unless she tells me to. Not when Rose is lying in the center of my bed, her breath still unsteady from the way I made her come in the living room. And fuck, it was perfect. She tasted so sweet. I glide my tongue over my lips as I stare down at her now. Her tight pussy gripped my fingers as she came, as though her body was desperate for more of my touch. Her arousal coated my hand. I wanted her to watch as I sucked it off my fingers, but she seemed lost in another dimension of euphoria, and I couldn’t bear to break her away.

And that doesn’t seem like something a friend would do. A lover, on the other hand …

The doubts might still swirl, telling me this is an epically bad idea. I’m not a good person for her. No matter how badly I want to be someone else, I know now that there’s another side of me beneath those curated desires, and I don’t know how deep that darkness goes. But I don’t think I have the willpower to resist her. She’s so fucking beautiful as she sits up enough to pull her shirt over her head, leaving her black bra behind. Her panties are already torn, hanging from the thigh of her unbroken leg, and she slides them off and then kicks them to the edge of the bed, her eyes not leaving mine.

“I thought you said you weren’t done,” she whispers. A slow smile creeps across her face. Somehow, she even makes that cast look sexy. It’s something about the way she’s learned to adapt to it. There’s a grace in her resilience that I find intoxicating.

“I’m not done,” I say, though I don’t move an inch closer, not even when her legs drop open like a dare. “I’m just …”

“Hesitating?”

“Taking my time.”

“So … hesitating.”

“I prefer ‘making the most of it,’” I say.

I’m totally hesitating.

Her grin stretches as she watches me. It’s hard to get anything past her. I feel like I might have managed to keep my deepest secrets close, despite what happened at the Blood Brothers fight. But it takes a lot of effort. Everything else seems to slip past my grasp, as though I’m split wide open and she’s stepped inside to look around.




“Then I guess I should make it worth your while,” Rose says. A spark ignites in her eyes. “Or mine.”

With that, she slides her hand down her body, a caress that drops from the notch of her throat, between her breasts, past her navel. Her touch detours, from one hipbone to the next, teasing me. Her eyes haven’t left mine. I still haven’t moved. Not even when her fingers finally slip down to her pussy and she touches her clit. Rose’s bottom lip slides between her teeth and she lets out a long, shuddering breath.

“I feel like I’m befriending myself in this friends-with-benefits situation,” she says, her voice barely more than a whisper that dissolves into a moan. There’s an earnest weight to her words, and maybe a little disappointment when she says, “You don’t need to join me, Doc.”

“Like fuck I’m not.”

With a hand behind my head, I grasp my shirt between the shoulders and tug it off, letting it fall to the floor. Rose’s eyes fall to my chest, to my abs. They latch onto the motion of my fingers as I release the buckle on my belt, my button next, my zipper after that. I take my time, riveted by her unwavering stare and the way she swirls her touch over her clit. I don’t miss a moment of it, committing what she seems to like to memory. A pattern. A pause. I want to touch her the same way, or surprise her with something she loves even more. Something she can’t do herself. I want to discover her, not just watch from the sidelines.

I pull my jeans and briefs past my hips. Rose makes no effort to hide the way she stares at my erection. Just like with everything else in her life, she’s bold, brazen. Undeterred by what other people might think or the unspoken rules that bind us. Rose knows what she wants. And it’s intoxicating to know that what she wants is me. Openly. She drags her eyes up my body like she’s savoring every inch of my skin. It takes everything in me not to rush forward and bury my cock to the hilt in her pussy with a single stroke.

“Have you been tested?” she asks.

“Yes. I’m clear. It’s been … a while. A long while.”