Unrequited Read online

  “My new job. Left to me courtesy of Mr. Sean O’Malley.” There was a faint twinge of bitterness. “Dad wanted to stamp his signature on the city and chose this downtown revitalization project. But then he died and left it to me, so I don’t know whether to love or hate him.”

  “It’s okay to feel both. Love and hate,” I clarified unnecessarily.

  “I suppose you’re right.” He stopped the truck in front of a trailer.

  “You can cry you know. I did a lot of that.”

  “I like to have my emotional release come a different way.”

  “Like what?”

  He shifted in the truck seat to look at me. His hand reached out to cup my face. “You’ve grown into a very beautiful woman. I’d very much like to take you inside the trailer and fuck you against the wall.”

  “That’s kind of a coarse invitation.”

  His thumb ran over my lower lip, using some of the moisture of my mouth to wet my lip. I shivered, and a grim but knowing smile spread across his face.

  “It’s the only kind I’ve got in me. All the tender emotion has been eaten up by my dad’s death. I want to lose myself in you, Winter.”

  He got out of the truck and opened my door, giving me an expectant look. Was I in or out?

  I knew what he was saying. It wasn’t that he loved me, wanted to date me, or wanted me to be his girlfriend. He’d probably be disappointed if he saw me next to him tomorrow morning. He’d lie awake wondering if he had to chew off his own arm to escape. He was offering a hard fuck in his trailer, not lovemaking in his bed.

  I knew all of this and still wanted him.

  Maybe the sex would burn away his mystery, and I wouldn't internally sigh when I heard his name. Maybe it wouldn't. But it was a risk worth taking, and I planned to get my money's worth.

  “How many condoms do you have?” I answered boldly.

  His eyes glittered in the moonlight. “How many do I need?”

  “Depends on your stamina and recovery time.”

  “Honey, you're going to have a hard time walking out of the trailer when we're done.”

  My heart ached at his words, but I took his hand and followed him inside.

  2

  WINTER

  He didn’t give me much time. Inside the trailer, I got a glimpse of a desk piled high with papers, empty bottles of beer and pop, and a backpack with clothes spilling out of it before Finn began tearing at my clothes. He had my top off and was peeling my jeans and underwear off my legs before I took two breaths.

  The motion put his face level with my crotch. “Well, fuck me. What have we got here? Bare, are you?” He stated the obvious. He ran his hand ran over the smooth skin, and I stifled a moan.

  “I don’t like pubic hair.”

  “No shit.” He stroked his hand between my legs. “You are no end of surprises. Are you more sensitive?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  He dropped his hand between his legs.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m squeezing my balls so I don’t come in my pants.” He huffed a few times and then slid a hand up the back of my legs, stopping just below my butt. “Open up. I want to know how you taste.”

  I was glad he was holding me because the minute his tongue touched my clit, my knees buckled. His hands lifted me, and my butt met the cold steel top of his desk. I felt, rather than heard, his low chuckle. “You taste fucking delicious.”

  He spun around and found his chair. Then he settled between my legs and dived in.

  If I’d thought he was a good kisser, it was only because I hadn’t had him do anything else to me.

  He worked his tongue against my clit and pussy like he was discovering the secrets of the world with each pass of his tongue along my flesh. Each touch was strong yet tender.

  “Oh, Finn.” I clutched at his hair, grabbing fists of it in each hand. The feelings he was generating were so intense, I didn’t know if I should push him away or pull him closer.

  He pushed my thighs apart, wider than I realized they could go, exposing every inch of me to him. I didn’t feel embarrassed, not with the happy noises he was making, not with the avid way he ate at me.

  I was out of my mind with pleasure. When his fingers joined the party, there was no way I could stop the orgasm. Why would I want to?

  He rose, and bereft of his intimate touch, I felt awkward. He was still completely clothed, and I was buck ass naked on his desk. “We’re wrecking your desk. And I feel weird. You have too many clothes on.”

  “Best use of this desk ever,” he said. “Besides, you aren’t going to be the only one naked.” He tore at his jeans, and I tried to lean over to help. He brushed my hands away.

  “Don’t touch me. I’m this close to losing it, and I want my first time to be inside you.” He cupped my face and kissed me.

  He kept undressing. He toed off his boots. His jeans fell to the floor, and he kicked them aside. His socks followed and then his T-shirt in the one-arm-behind-the-back, over-the-head move that guys master when they are three.

  He stood in front of me, hard muscle covered in pale skin. His large, thick-veined cock bobbed between us, and for a second I paused to wonder if he was going to fit inside me without an aid—like a bottle of lube.

  He fished a couple of condoms from inside his jeans pocket and laid them on the desk. I shut out what that meant—how he’d had them ready and more than one. It was only for one night. That was all I wanted too.

  So I watched as he rolled the nearly clear material over his heavy, erect shaft. The sight of him handling his member had me squirming on the desk. He reached his free hand between my legs, testing my readiness, and then held me open for him.

  “Tell me if it hurts.”

  I bit my lip as the broad head opened me. Dots of sweat appeared on his forehead, as if the effort he exerted to keep from hammering inside was harder than building a house.

  My head fell back as he eased out. His mouth found a sensitive place on my neck and then another on my shoulder right above the crease of my arm. He tucked his hands under my butt and drew me closer as my body opened and welcomed his.

  He was large, much larger than I’d ever had, and I felt stretched to the hilt.

  “You’re so goddamned tight,” he hissed through clenched teeth. He pushed forward relentlessly until he was sheathed inside my body from tip to base. “Stay still,” he ordered when I began to thrust forward gently.

  The scratch of his hair against my bare skin was just one more sensation, and I was finding it hard to remain passive.

  His labored breath in my ear was as much of a turn on as his hands roving over every square inch of my body. He was into me as much as I was into him. We were getting lost in each other.

  Then he began to move, and the drag of his shaft along my tender tissues made the world tilt on its axis. I’d never be the same again.

  He worked me longer than I’d expected. His eyes were closed, and his lower lip between his teeth as if he were concentrating on something very important.

  In long, almost leisurely strokes, he pulled out to the tip and then thrust back in. Over and over until my entire focus shrank to the feel of his body moving between my legs. I grappled for leverage. His shoulders were slick with sweat. His biceps were too big for me to curl my hands around.

  “More,” I gasped and dug my heels into the small of his back.

  His eyes flicked open, just bare slits that in another context could have been menacing, but here were hot brands of need.

  He savored me in a way I didn’t know was possible, so I let go. I lay back on the desk and placed my palms flat against the trailer wall, pushing forward to meet every slow thrust. I let him take me in a sweet seduction that turned me inside out, and when I came, I felt it in every nerve, fingertip, and toe.

  When I convulsed around him, he let himself go.

  “Hold on,” he said. And before I could respond, he planted one hand by my head and the other on my hip. He dro
ve into my body with a force that had the heavy desk rattling against the floor.

  I held on as he hammered into me. He shifted once, and then twice, and then his pelvic bone hit my clit just right, and I couldn’t keep my screams inside my body.

  He half-laughed, half-groaned and went rigid in my arms, his hips pumping and thrusting until he’d released everything he had.

  I held him as the aftermath of his orgasm shuddered down his spine and wondered if I could ever forget this night.

  He’d marked me as permanently as any tattoo.

  * * *

  He hadn’t been bragging. He had plenty of stamina. After taking me on the desk, he stripped off the condom and grabbed a water bottle I had assumed was empty. He doused his dick and then placed a couple of handfuls of cool water between my legs. We found ourselves on the couch—him on his back with my knees around his head while I took him in my mouth. He was much better at multitasking than me.

  Because he’d already come, he lasted longer too. I felt I was orgasming every five minutes while I sat on his face. While I rode cowgirl, which really worked me over. While he bent me over the back of the sofa, one hand on my neck and the other clamped around my hip, pulling me back to him every stroke.

  He didn’t come again until we were in the tiny shower in the back of the trailer. There wasn’t room for one person, let alone two, and water was everywhere, but Finn said to ignore it. He was. He was too busy driving his cock inside me.

  I tried to memorize it all because this was my only time with him. We dozed on the couch for a little while, and when I woke, little fingerlings of dawn were creeping into the trailer through the slatted blinds.

  I took him into my mouth, slowly savoring the musk of his body, inhaling the warm sleep scent of him.

  He grew hard and too long for me to take in entirely, so I added my hands, cupping the base and working him at the top until he was pulling my hair away.

  “Gonna come,” he said in a gravelly, barely awake voice.

  I pushed forward until he hit the back of my throat, and I didn’t stop until he was coming in long, lovely spurts into my mouth.

  “I’ll return the favor when my brain falls down from the sky,” he muttered sleepily. I smiled sadly and waited until he fell asleep.

  Then I gathered up my clothes and left.

  It was a twenty-minute walk back to the café and then a fifteen-minute drive home, but it felt like the longest journey of my life.

  3

  May

  FINN

  "Is that Winter Donovan over there?" Adam yelled in my ear. The strip club was loud enough to be a dance club. The idea must have been to blind the customer with lights and deafen with music.

  Slim build, long curtain of black hair, button nose, defiant look? Yeah, that was Winter Donovan all right, and while I wouldn't have been surprised to see her sister here—I'd actually heard a vague rumor she was stripping—seeing Winter was a shock. This wasn't her scene, never mind that she had given up her paintbrushes for the tattoo gun. Winter was as straight an arrow as they came. She didn't drink, smoke, or do drugs. As far as I knew, she had only one tattoo. And I'd know better than most, better than almost anyone. I still saw her sweet sex when I crashed into my bed at night. I fantasized about tonguing it and her coming all over my face. It was high-end spank bank material, but I was tired of one-handing it. Seeing Winter here in her short shorts and tight top was like a punch in the nuts. Painful. Unforgettable.

  Behind me I felt a slight push. Fucking Henry. "Are we going to stand here all night, or are we going to see some pussy?"

  The urge to retort with a sarcastic remark flooded my mouth. Any other guy in my crew who'd acted so obviously insolent, I'd have fired immediately. But Henry had me over a barrel. He was the foreman of the crew working to bring my dad's dream project to fruition, and I had to make nice with him. This strip club idea was his. We'd started out at the High Life, drinking beers and shooting the shit, but as one hour slipped into another, no one wanted to go home. They'd been granted a night out to get to know their dead boss's son, and they wanted to take full advantage.

  Henry was busting my balls because he didn't think a pissant like me should be running a multi-million dollar project. Privately I agreed with him, but this was my dad's legacy, and I'd be damned if I didn't finish it, on time and on budget.

  Henry had probably started out the night with every intention of ending up here. No doubt he and my old man had come here more than once. My dad was friendly, overly so, with women.

  "I'm looking for a place to sit," I answered coolly.

  At midnight, Riskie's was crowded enough that we couldn't sit beside the stage, but mirrors were everywhere so the action couldn't miss even if one wanted to. What was going down on the stage held little interest for me. Instead, I watched the bar like an alcoholic who hadn't had a drink in five days, which was a pretty apt description. I hadn't seen or talked to Winter in two months. Not since the night she ran out on me.

  I'd been in my first strip club when I was fifteen. Dad and Uncle Patrick had taken me to a place in Chicago where twenty-dollar bills were shoved down the G-string of a woman, not one-dollar bills. The women there were finer than anything I'd seen in high school. At that point, I didn't realize how much a woman's body could be cosmetically enhanced—from breast implants to butt implants, those ladies were surgically sculpted “perfection.”

  Dad told me he wanted me to learn to be a man, which included knowing how to please a woman in bed. If I could get a whore off, I could get anyone off. I loved my dad and missed him so much, it felt like I was missing a limb, but I would be the first to admit he was fucked up when it came to women.

  Because I loved him but didn't want to be him, I'd avoided the family construction business when I got out of college, opting to flip houses instead. And I'd tried hard to treat every woman in my life with respect. But the one woman who mattered, I'd fucked up with. She hadn't taken my calls, answered my texts, or responded to my emails—the ones I’d sent after I realized I’d screwed up. I knew what she was thinking—that we’d made a mistake, and I had let her think that while I sorted out my own head.

  The only real mistake was letting her run for so long.

  A hard elbow in my side had me looking over sharply with a "fuck you" on the tip of my tongue, but it was just Adam. He gave me a slight nod of warning and a look that said "pay attention." He was right. I was winning the crew over even if Henry had reservations.

  "You bored, son?" Henry mocked, but his tone was half-envious, as if he wondered how I was immune to all this jiggling flesh.

  "Just making sure we don't die of thirst," I answered. "Why don't you pick out a place for us, and I'll get the drinks." The three other guys who worked under Henry nodded in enthusiasm, but Henry narrowed his eyes as if I had some trick up my sleeve.

  I did, but it had nothing to do with Henry and our stupid little power plays. At the bar, most of the guys had their stools turned because even though the place was ringed with mirrors, they were here to see the live show. The bartender gave me a nod of acknowledgment and held up one finger. After a minute, he hustled down. Wiping the bar top with a rag too wet to absorb any liquid, he gestured for my order.

  "Two pitchers."

  "Eighteen dollars."

  I laid a twenty on the bar top, but when the bartender tugged at the bill, I didn't let go. "Which section is Winter Donovan's?"

  He squinted and then looked past me into the club. When he didn't spot her—because she wasn't on the floor—he shrugged. "Left side of the stage, near the front."

  The front left side of the stage was nearly shrouded in darkness, but I saw a table big enough for six that would make Henry happy and would put me in prime viewing of all the other tables in Winter's section. "Thanks." I laid another five on the bar top and shoved the bills toward him.

  Across the room, I managed to catch Adam's eye. We'd been friends since kindergarten, so it wasn't hard for Adam to read
my intentions. He placed a hand on Henry's arm, stalling him while I went to claim the table—the one that was occupied.

  No one from the table noticed me when I approached. They were too busy staring slack-jawed at the stage, where a pretty Asian girl worked the pole like gravity didn't exist. "A hundred bucks for your table." I slapped down the bill in the middle of them, and the five guys stared at it and then me for the three long seconds it took to make up their minds.

  One meaty hand dove across the table and snatched it up. "All yours."

  I dropped the pitchers, sat in my chair, and waited.

  A tall, busty blonde in a sheer black baby doll nightie and shorts so tiny they might as well have been underwear showed up after Adam, Henry, and the others took their seats. She arranged glasses in front of us and poured the beer.

  "Where's Winter?" I asked. I felt like a broken record.

  The blonde gave me a long perusal, and I gave her my smile, the one my last girlfriend said made her panties wet and her heart beat faster. I didn't know if it had the same results on the waitress, but it worked enough to get her to soften her intense gaze. She tipped her head toward the other side of the room. Through the flashing lights and fog creeping over the stage, I saw the fall of Winter's black hair that fell like a silk curtain. It tumbled forward as she leaned over and passed drinks to tables.

  "Thought this was her section."

  She gave me a sympathetic shrug. "Things change. Sometimes we trade. I promise I can deliver a beer and a burger as well as Winter."

  "I don't doubt that." Carrying on a conversation in the middle of any club was impossible, so I gave up. The blonde took our order and hustled off. I stared across the room, tracking Winter's every movement. The club was designed so every eye would be focused on the stage. All the lights were directed there, leaving the rest of the place shrouded in darkness. But I knew her, even in the dark, so it wasn't hard for me to make out her shape, to watch her move from table to table, to get turned on whenever she bent over.