Page 66 of Skin Deep

I pleaded through the gag, whimpering and moaning for more as he sucked me. I felt his teeth go over me and that was it. My orgasm hit me like a gut punch, cock spilling on his tongue while my legs trembled.

I was still riding the high of my orgasm when he crawled back up my body and yanked the underwear out of my mouth. He kissed me hard, and I groaned at the taste of my cum still on his lips and tongue.

After, he collapsed on top of me, the heaviness of him like a pleasant, weighted blanket. The heat of his skin against my aching body was heaven. Even though it was difficult to breathe, I didn’t want him to move. Pax was exactly the comfort I needed to feel whole again.

“God damn, War,” he managed after a few minutes. “God damn.” Shaky fingers reached to free me from the restraints. “You good?”

“Yeah,” I said, still a little dazed and suddenly even more exhausted than before.

“You want a shower?”

I considered it for a minute, but the usual burning need to be clean wasn’t as strong as my desire to stay near him. I wanted to stay there with the warmth of him against me. “I’m good for now.” My hands fell free and I rubbed some circulation back into my wrists before putting my arms around him. “I needed tonight. All of it. Thank you.”

“Anytime you need me, I’m right here,” he said, kissing my temple.

I was more than a little disappointed when he rolled off of me to go deal with the condom, but he came back a short while later and pulled me against him. I turned over to throw my leg over his and laid against him, chasing the heat of his body.

“What do we do now?” Paxton asked.

I yawned. “Sleep?”

He chuckled. “I meant about Bowen. Do we still get him or…?”

Pax left the question hanging.

I sighed and buried my face against his chest, breathing the scent of him in like a drug. “I think we should. The sooner we get all of this over with, the better. I’m going to talk to Nikita tomorrow first though. I want you and the girls to stay here. You’ll be safer here.”

“All right,” he said, kissing my cheek.

I yawned again. “We can grab Bowen as he’s leaving the Foxhole tomorrow night around midnight.”

“Where will we take him?” Paxton started running his fingers down my spine, almost like he was petting me. I liked it a lot.

“The factory where I took you that first night. We use it for interrogations.” I lifted my chin, resting it on his chest as I looked up at him. “I’ll get the information we need out of him.”

“And then what? What about the body?”

I gave a tired shrug. “Same as always.”

I still had to talk to River and arrange the hearse. He was teaching Theo how to drive that giant boat of a vehicle, and we’d need his help to move the body and get it in the incinerator. Hopefully he wouldn’t argue with me about it. The less everyone else knew about what was going on, the better. It was bad enough that Xander had gotten caught in the crossfire at the Foxhole. I should’ve protected him better. We argued like cats and dogs, but at the end of the day, he was my brother, and nobody was allowed to kill my brothers but me.

And here I was about to drag Paxton further into my world. Tomorrow, we’d torture and kill a man together. He’d stain his hands with blood forever. I didn’t feel like I was worth it, but he made me want to try to be. When I was with him, I could imagine a world where I was a better man, someone who deserved a man as good and kind as him.

“You were good with the girls today,” Pax said eventually.

“I like kids. Always wanted some of my own. It’s why I stayed with Ken so long. He was… stable. All the social workers and agencies liked him. Didn’t care much for me, especially when I couldn’t pass their stupid psych evals.” I sighed. “It was always ‘come back after more therapy’ or ‘try again after you’ve been on your new medications longer.’ Fuck the meds.” I rolled over onto my back. “You know that shit kills your libido? And they made me drowsy at work. I almost botched a surgery. They didn’t even work all the time, and when they did, it felt… fake.”

Paxton laid beside me, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment. “I ain’t saying you should take them if you don’t want to. That’s your choice. Just… they work for some people, I guess. Maybe they would’ve helped Maya. I wish I’d had the time to find out.”

I rolled onto my side and ran my fingers over the petals of the sunflower inked onto his chest. “What would she think of me?”

“You?” He turned over to face me, propping his head up with an arm. “I think she would’ve liked you. Might not have approved of all the killing, but you know, she found the sunshine in everybody.”

I put my hand flat against his chest and met his eyes. “You’re still in love with her.”

“Of course I am,” he said, putting his hand over mine. “But I got room for you too. Maybe it’s presumptuous, but I think she would’ve wanted me to be happy. She would’ve wanted me to choose someone who could help me look out for the girls. You do both those things for me, Warrick.”

A little thrill went through me as I looked up at him. “I make you happy?”

---