Salt Kiss novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Upstairs

Ford takes Nolan up the private stair and gives him exactly what he has wanted, then hands him the job and a note in a woman's handwriting.

Nolan stared at the photograph, then at Ford, then at his own hands still gripping the desk.

"You want me to go after your fiancée," he said.

"With my belt half undone."

"Yes."

"Sir, that's the strangest order I've ever had."

Ford almost smiled.

"Not tonight," he said.

"Tonight you finish what I started.

"Tomorrow you go."

He picked up his glasses and put them in his pocket, and then he held out his hand.

Nolan let go of the desk and took it.

The private stair behind the office climbed to a door with no number.

Ford unlocked it, and inside was one big room with a black iron bed, tall windows over the river, and a smell of salt and cedar.

Ford shut the door and turned the lock.

"Shirt."

Nolan stripped it off over his head.

Ford looked at him for a long moment, at the scar on his ribs and the hard muscle across his chest.

Something in his face went very quiet.

"Boots.

"Trousers.

"Then on the bed, face down."

Nolan obeyed.

With every piece of clothing that hit the floor, eight years of giving the orders slid off his shoulders.

He lay on the cold sheet with his heart slamming against the mattress.

The mattress dipped.

Ford's hands came down his back, slow, flat and heavy, over his shoulders and down to the small of his spine.

"You're shaking," Ford said.

"Yes, sir."

"Good."

A bottle clicked open.

Slick fingers pressed between his cheeks, and Nolan's whole body arched into it, helpless and hungry.

"Look at that," Ford said softly.

"You've been wanting this a long time."

"Years," Nolan said into the pillow.

"I never had anyone I'd let."

Ford pushed one finger in, and then two, and stretched him patiently.

Nolan ground his hips against the sheet and begged without meaning to.

"Please," he said.

"Please, sir, I need..."

"I know what you need."

Ford's weight lifted away.

Ford pressed against him, thick and hot, and pushed.

The stretch of it was huge.

Nolan groaned, long and rough, and Ford took his wrists and pinned them to the mattress beside his head.

"Breathe," Ford said into his ear.

"I've got you."

He sank in all the way, slow, until his hips sat flush against Nolan's ass.

For a moment neither of them moved.

Then Ford drew back and drove in hard.

Nolan cried out.

Ford set a rhythm that was deep and merciless.

Each stroke dragged over the place inside him that made white light jump behind his eyes.

The bed hit the wall.

Ford's beard scratched the back of his neck and his teeth closed on his shoulder.

"You want to come?" Ford said.

"Yes, sir."

"Not yet."

Nolan sobbed a laugh into the pillow.

Ford shifted his angle and fucked him harder, one hand fisted in the sheet.

His other hand slid under Nolan's hips and wrapped around his cock.

He stroked him in time, tight and slow, and Nolan's whole body strained toward it.

"Please," Nolan said.

"Please, please..."

"Now."

It tore through him.

He came with a shout, hot over Ford's fist and the sheet, every muscle locking.

Ford groaned behind him and slammed in once, twice.

He spilled deep inside him with a rough sound against his neck.

They stayed like that, wrecked and breathing.

After a while Ford rolled onto his back and pulled Nolan's head onto his chest.

His heartbeat was fast.

Under the commanding man, under the suit, it was just a fast heartbeat.

"Her name is Skye Pickett," Ford said, to the ceiling.

"She's on Sable Key.

"Her grandfather's shack, up the coast.

"The causeway floods at high tide."

Nolan lifted his head.

"Why can't you go?"

"Because a man named Cliff Brantley has had a car outside my building for two weeks.

"He bought the note on this building in September.

"A balloon payment, fourteen million, due Friday at noon."

Ford's jaw worked.

"If I leave, he follows.

"If you leave, you're a guard on his night off."

"And she took what, exactly?"

"Something that lets me stay standing.

"Or lets me fall.

"Depending on who holds it."

Ford was quiet a moment.

Then he reached to the nightstand, opened its small drawer, and took out an envelope gone soft at the folds.

He held it out.

Inside was a single sheet in a woman's quick, slanted handwriting.

If you have to send someone, send someone I'd like.

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