A Ruler in Disguise novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Spare Room

She treats his scars on her sofa and kisses him; at dawn a uniformed woman on the sidewalk salutes him and calls him Commander.

My apartment was over the shop, up a narrow stairway that smelled like wet stems and coffee.

I had not planned to bring him up there.

But he had said he'd sleep in the van, and the van smelled like a crime scene.

"You're not sleeping in the van," I told him. "You can have the sofa."

"I don't need a sofa."

"You carried four hundred peonies and took a twenty from a bully. You need a sofa."

He almost smiled at that, a small tired thing at one corner of his mouth.

I turned on the lamp and he took off the cap for the first time all day.

His hair was dark and cropped close, and his face was older than I had thought, thirty-four maybe.

He had a hard, quiet kind of handsome that made my pulse go wrong.

"Sit," I said. "Your sleeve is torn."

It was, from the handcuff scuffle, and under it a long angry line ran across his forearm.

I got the first aid kit and knelt in front of the sofa and cleaned it.

He watched my hands.

"Why did you stand up on that lawn?" he said.

"Because I'm tired of being stepped on."

"You were on your knees picking up petals."

"I was picking up petals so I could get paid. That's different."

"Is it?"

"Yes," I said. "Shut up and hold still."

He laughed, a low surprised sound.

His shirt had come open at the collar, and I saw a scar low on his ribs, round and puckered, the size of a coin.

I put my fingertip on it before I could stop myself.

"That's a bullet," I said.

"Yes."

"And this?"

A burn scar spread over his right shoulder in a rough web, pale against his skin.

"Also yes."

"You're a delivery boy."

"I'm a lot of things."

His voice had gone rough.

I was still kneeling between his knees with my hand on his chest, and I could feel his heart under my palm, slow and steady.

Mine was hammering.

"Dev," I said.

"Clover."

It was the first time he'd said my name, and it went through me.

I stood up, and he stood too, and he was so tall that I had to tip my head back.

I put both hands on his shirt and pulled his mouth down to mine.

He didn't hesitate.

He kissed me.

His hand slid into my hair, scattering my pencil across the floor, and he walked me backward until my back hit the wall.

"I've been starving for your mouth all week," he growled against my lips.

"Then don't hold back."

"Clover."

"If you stop, I'll hit you with a vase."

His laugh went into my throat, and then his mouth was on my neck, and my head fell back against the plaster.

I tore at his shirt buttons.

He caught my wrists in one hand and pinned them over my head.

"Slow," he said.

"I don't want slow."

"I know what you want."

He unbuttoned my blouse with his free hand, one button at a time, while I shook.

When it fell open he looked at me for a long breath.

He took in the black lace, the soft curve of my belly and my full breasts.

"God, you're beautiful," he said.

I'm a size sixteen and no one had ever said it like a fact.

He lowered his head and dragged his mouth across the swell of my breast, and then he pulled the cup down with his teeth.

His tongue circled my nipple, and I cried out and arched into him.

"Dev, please."

"Please what?"

"Touch me."

He let go of my wrists and dropped to his knees.

He pushed my skirt up around my hips and hooked my panties down and stared at me, wet and open in the lamplight.

"Look at you," he said.

His hands gripped my thighs and spread them wider.

Then his mouth was on my pussy, hot and sure, his tongue dragging slowly over my clit.

My knees nearly buckled.

I grabbed his hair with both hands and he growled into me and held me up against the wall by my hips.

He licked me in long, slow strokes, then fast circles that made me gasp, then slow again, and I couldn't breathe.

"Don't stop," I begged. "Don't you dare stop."

He slid two fingers inside me and curled them, and found the place that made stars burst behind my eyes.

I came with a broken sound, shaking against his mouth, my fingers locked in his hair.

He kept licking me through every wave until I whimpered and pushed at his shoulders.

He stood and wiped his mouth with his thumb and kissed me, and I tasted myself on him.

"Bed," he said.

"Bedroom," I said. "Through that door."

He picked me up.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and he carried me through the dark doorway and dropped me on the quilt.

I pulled his shirt off him.

He was hard and scarred and gorgeous, all muscle and old wounds, and I put my mouth on the burn on his shoulder.

He shuddered.

I pushed him onto his back and opened his belt, and he let me.

When I took his cock in my hand he was thick and hot and so hard it jumped against my palm.

"Clover," he said, and his voice cracked.

I stroked him slowly, base to tip, and watched his face come apart.

Then he flipped me under him in one move, and his weight pinned me into the mattress.

"My turn," he said.

He pushed my thighs apart with his knees and settled between them.

I felt the head of him against my wet entrance, and I lifted my hips to meet him.

He pushed in, slow and deep, and stretched me so full I gasped his name.

"Look at me," he said.

I looked.

His grey eyes were dark and wild, and he sank all the way in and stayed there, shaking with control.

"You feel," he said. "Fuck, you feel like home."

Then he moved.

He fucked me with long, hard strokes that rocked the whole bed, and I dug my nails into his back and met every thrust.

"Harder," I said.

He gave it to me.

His hand slid under my knee and hooked my leg over his shoulder, and the angle sent him so deep I screamed.

"That's it," he said, breathing hard. "Take it. You take me so well."

I was babbling by then, saying his name, saying yes, saying don't stop.

The headboard hit the wall in a steady, furious rhythm.

His thumb found my clit and rubbed it in tight circles, and I felt it coming again, bigger than before.

"Come for me," he said. "Now."

I did.

I clenched around him and shattered, crying out into his shoulder.

He groaned and drove into me twice more, and came with his face buried in my neck.

He filled my pussy with hot pulses of cum, shaking, saying my name over and over.

We lay there for a long time with our hearts slamming.

His arm stayed heavy across my waist.

"Stay," I said into the dark.

"I'm not going anywhere."

I fell asleep with his hand in mine.

When I woke, the window was grey and he was gone from the bed.

I pulled on his shirt and padded to the front room.

He stood at the window, looking down at Bull Street.

On the sidewalk below, a woman in a dark uniform with silver hair stood at attention beside a black car.

She was sixty at least, straight as a rod.

She raised her hand to her brow in a crisp salute.

"Good morning, Commander," I heard her say, through the open window.

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