Chasing the Fall (Naughty and Spice)

Ten

Bran

Straightening from the most intoxicating thing I’ve ever tasted, I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and survey the beauty laid out before me.

That was unexpected. I take a moment to take stock. Am I sorry it happened? Hell, no. Do I want more?

A little smile curls my lips.

Fuck, yeah. I want it all.

The look on her face challenges me, a mixture of wariness and satisfaction and nerves. “Not half bad,” she snarks, but the words tremble between us.

Yeah, whatever.

Without reply, I grab hold of Tally, pulling her into a seated position on the counter and then into my arms. I pull her legs around my waist and kiss her, deep and open-mouthed, wanting her to taste herself on my lips, sweet and acidic and uniquely her.

She moans into my mouth, her tongue twisting with mine, and my brain goes blank. The only word that takes shape is mine .

Tallulah Gentry is mine. It’s a disconcerting, novel idea. I’ve never had such an immediate, visceral reaction before, never had the fundamental certainty that I was meant to be with any specific person. I take a moment to explore its basic truth, take it apart and put it back together, savor its rightness.

Yes. Tally is mine, and I don’t care what I have to do to make it official.

The first step in that direction is sinking my cock deep inside her, so the only thing she knows is where she ends and I begin, until she can see no other way forward than with me alongside her.

I carry her into the bedroom and lower her to the bed, then straighten and unbuckle my belt. Eyes wide, she props herself on her elbows and watches with avid interest as I unbutton, unzip, and push my jeans and boxer briefs to the floor, kicking them aside with a negligent flick of my foot.

Taking my dick in my hand, I give it a slow pump. She needs to see me, see what she’s getting herself into. Her lips part, close, and a visible swallow moves her throat.

“Sweet mother…” she whispers. Suddenly she’s moving, turning and shifting as if to climb off the bed. I dart my hand out and capture her ankle, pulling her back toward me.

“I won’t be letting you go that easily,” I growl.

“You’re fucking huge,” she whispers, face turned into the blanket. “I can’t—”

“You can. I won’t hurt you.” I stroke my hand over the curve of her buttock, and she melts beneath my touch, submitting. I lift her hips and press her shoulders down before sliding two fingers through the slickness between her legs. “Jaysus, but you’re soaked for me—”

I trail one hand down the line of her spine to settle at the juncture of her hips and waist, then press my thumbs into the dimples at the small of her back, adjusting her slightly to give me a better angle for our disparate heights. Lining myself up with her body, I hesitate a moment, mesmerized by the sight of my thickness probing her glistening pink cunt, and then with one hard thrust, seat myself within her.

She gasps, the sound forced out by my girth taking up residence in her body, and goes tense beneath me, burying her face in her arms.

I halt the immediate instinct to withdraw and thrust again, stunned into stillness. Was that…was she…

“Tally, baby, fuck—” I let my body curl over hers, belatedly trying to protect her. Her ass pushes back against my hips, eliciting a groan.

“I’m good,” she says.

“You’re not good, you’re a—” I can’t even say the word. I inhale, smelling the sweetness of her shampoo and skin. I just tore through her innocence like it was nothing, like it had no value.

“Not anymore,” she says, pushing back into me again.

I pull away, nearly wanting to cry from the sensation of leaving the tight heat of her body.

“You should have told me, I would have never— fuck. ” Stepping away from the bed, I start to pace, running an agitated hand through my hair. “Jaysus, Tally, you can’t just—”

In my peripheral, I see her roll to her back, leaning on her elbows again. She bends one knee, offering a tantalizing glimpse of her pussy.

“Who’s the liar now?” she asks.

“What?” I turn and glare at her, fire raging through my veins, but I can’t stop my gaze from dropping to where her hand touches herself lightly between the legs. Her inner thighs are dotted with blood. My cock twitches with need, still rock hard and painful with it.

“You said only little boys with tiny pricks are intimidated by a woman’s natural body. Does the fact that no other man has had the balls to touch me—until now—intimidate you?”

Every fucking button pushed, with one sentence. One look.

My jaw tightens. “I know what you’re doing,” I tell her, pointing a finger in her direction.

“Yeah? Does that mean it’s working?”

In lieu of words, I growl once again. It doesn’t faze her.

“I am not a virgin anymore, so either ruin me for all men like you said you would, or fuck off and I’ll find someone else who will.”

She rises from the bed, her motions jerky with anger, and starts to walk around me. It breaks something in me, and I grab her arm, pull her against me, and slam my lips against hers.

The kiss seethes with aggression and triumph.

“Remember you asked for this.” I push her back onto the bed and kick her legs apart with mine as I follow her down, echoing a time days earlier when I did the same thing. I stopped myself then, told myself she wasn’t for me, to run don’t walk if I valued my life.

I don’t do that now. I lift her legs, resting her ankles on my shoulders. “If any other man even looks at you after this, I am going to fucking kill him.”

Lining myself up once again, I slam into her in one fast, brutal thrust that sends her body sliding up toward the head of the bed. She reaches a hand out and slaps it against the headboard, bracing herself as I pump into her over and over, my eyes near to crossing from the tightness that sheathes me.

I’m being too rough, but her face is a mask of pleasure. Desire. Need. My own lust recognizes it, thrills in it, and thunders through me.

Reaching down, I slip my hand between her legs and circle her clit, pounding steadily into her. I know if I keep my pace steady and stimulate her, she should come…and I really, really want to feel her tighten around me.

She moans, her eyes falling closed and her lips parting. One hand leaves the headboard to clutch my arm, her nails digging deep. The rise and fall of her hips beneath me loses its rhythm, her legs starting to shake against my shoulders, and a thin sheen of sweat blooms over her heated skin.

She’s close.

“Come on my cock, baby,” I tell her, my voice strained with my own effort to hold back. As if I’ve given her permission, she stiffens against me and her inner muscles draw tight and tighter and then—

It happens. She explodes around me, a low keening sound leaving her lips, and I follow, pumping my own release into her.

I collapse, rolling to my back and pulling her against my side so I don’t crush her. We don’t talk, both of our hearts needing oxygen more than we need words in this moment. I turn my head and drop a light kiss on her temple.

Tallulah Gentry doesn’t know it yet, but she just signed her soul to the devil, and his name is Bran Kelly.

Slowly and with excruciating care, I ease myself from the bed. Tally slumbers on, shifting to turn onto her side when I move but otherwise not rousing. Moonlight falls across her lax features, the play of shadows making her dark lashes stand out in stark relief against the pallor of her skin.

I stand for a long moment beside the bed and stare down at her as I pull on a pair of sweatpants.

How the hell did we get here? She was a fucking virgin. I would never have guessed, never have thought…

My stomach clenches at the memory of her tight cunt squeezing my shaft like a velvet fist, the coiled tension in her limbs as I held on to her, the little choked gasps she made when I thrust into her wet heat.

Shaking my head, I leave the room, pulling the door closed behind me. I'm a dead man; that's all there is to it. The problem is that I can't bring myself to be sorry for it.

I’ve never had another woman who fit me so perfectly in every way, and I can’t give her up. Not now, when I’ve only just figured it out. It’s not a matter of size…we’re about as opposite as we can be where that’s concerned. It’s something different. Something more.

In the kitchen, I pour myself a drink and stand at the counter sipping it. The whiskey burns, searing through the guilt and shame that plagues me no matter how certain I am that Tally’s mine.

I’m keeping her.

It’s just that I’ve never disobeyed a direct order, not once since coming to work for the Irish as a teenager. Since taking this job it's been one act of disobedience right after another, though, and Kael isn’t apt to take it well. Mentally I tick through each offense.

I didn't take her to Philly.

Definitely didn’t keep my hands to myself.

My mind drifts to the shooter at the cabin.

Didn’t even really protect her.

My jaw tightens, and I drain the last of my drink. That will be the last time I fail her. Thurston's misstep had become my boon. It never should have happened the way it had, but if I’m honest with myself…I don't hate how things turned out.

Tally is mine. The words sing a refrain in my head and heart.

Now I just have to make sure she understands that, and navigate the situation in such a way as to escape with my dick intact…

Headlights sweep the front picture window, lighting the living area as a vehicle pulls to a stop in the driveway.

I set the glass on the counter with a soft clink. No one with anything good in mind comes to a man’s house in the dead of night.

My gun is in the bedroom, but I have another. I pull the middle drawer in the island out and reach for the weapon I have taped to its bottom, then cross the floor to peer out from between the slats of the blinds.

A single man climbs from the car, closes the door carefully, and opens the back door to pull something from the back seat. He carries it to the porch, and…waits. As I watch from the window, he simply stands in front of the door, for all the world like he knocked ten seconds earlier and is just waiting on someone to open it for him.

The knot of tension between my shoulder blades eases slightly. This is East Coast Irish modus operandi; he has to be one of Kael's men.

One can never be too careful, though. Still holding the gun, I move to the door and open it a crack. “Who’s there?”

“Scully.” The reply is uttered in resonant Irish tones, and I swing the door open fully, safetying the pistol.

His gaze travels down to it, and I tuck it beside my thigh, pointing to the floor instead of my unexpected visitor. “Sorry about that. Habit. You’re here from Kael?”

He nods. “Aye. I have the girl’s computer. Kael wanted me to take a look around, too, make sure you were good here.”

I nod and take the bag from his grip. “Thanks, and have at it. Just be quiet…Tallulah is sleeping.”

“Tallulah?”

Belatedly I remember that virtually everyone knows her as Twiggy from that stupid nickname I gave her. “Twiggy.”

Scully nods and pulls his collar closer to ward off the chill of the night. “All right, then, I’ll get to it. Kael wants regular updates.” He peers around me, into the interior of the cabin. “She’s asleep?”

“I’ll make sure to do that. Thanks and good-night.”

Without further conversation, I close the door. Rude, I suppose. I could’ve offered the man a drink.

Right now, though, I’m at a breaking point where Tally is concerned. If she were to stumble out of that bedroom dressed in anything less than a muu-muu in front of another man, I can’t be held accountable for my actions.

Better he stay outside.

Better he stay alive.