Page 52 of Along for the Ride

Gentry’s eyes snap to mine, and the familiar haze of anger returns to his face. He starts to get up, but she keeps him down with a hand across his lap. Nothing has ever held him back when he was angry, yet he’s become this pliable wad of muscle from nothing more than her arm and her perfect fucking mouth.

“I told you her pussy is mine,” he says.

“I know, dude. I didn’t mean to. She started choking on your dick, then she tightened on mine, and...and I’ll take care of it.” I pull out of her and drop to my knees. “Give back what you stole from me, little thief.” My tongue grazes her clit as I curl it around her entrance, and I love the way she jerks forward from nothing more than that tiny touch. My come emerges from her in creamy white ropes. She tilts her pelvis, and it drops onto my tongue. The salty mixture of semen and her pleasure dances on my taste buds, and I stick my tongue inside her so I can swallow every delicious drop.

“Come here,” Gentry says, and she’s tugged away from me and brought onto his lap.

I wipe the come from my lips and back away to put on my jeans. By the time I tuck my spent cock away, I’m blessed with a pretty sight. I may not know enough to appreciate fine art or understand the intricacies of a symphony, but I can grasp the beauty of what’s happening before me. She rocks on his lap as she rides him, her round ass bouncing on his thighs, and musical moans spring from her throat with every curl of her hips. Fucking magnificent.

And then Gentry’s phone breaks the magical moment. The ominous ringing that signals another hit. I stare as the phone vibrates on the desk beside Gentry. He’s never missed a call from George, and for good reason.

I step toward the nightstand.

“Don’t,” he says. “Not with the noise she’s about to make.” He holds her hips and punctuates every word with a firm upward thrust. The strangled scream she releases would sound pained if I didn’t see the pleasure woven through her eyes. He’s right not to answer. Dead women don’t scream like that.

Gentry’s hips stall beneath her, and he grunts as he fills her. He leans into the crook of her neck, but his eyes meet mine. “My pussy, wanderer. Mine.”

Two steps forward, one step back. I’ll take it.

ChapterTwenty-Two

Gentry

Ireturn George’s missed call, and I’m shocked to find him in a pleasant mood. He’s lined up one more hit before we reach the end of the line. The target is a man who likes to play the ponies but doesn’t like to pay up when he loses. And he loses a lot, apparently. I get the details in the hall, then return to the hotel room. It’s almost time to check out, but I need to speak with Leana before we push on.

Not wanting to have this discussion near Karson, I tell him we’re walking to the lobby for food and that we’ll bring something back for him. He’s engrossed in a true-crime documentary on the flatscreen, so he’s more than happy to hang back. He loves watching that shit and laughing at all the stupid mistakes the killers make, not realizing he’d be the star on one of those shows if I didn’t always clean up after him.

Down in the lobby, Leana and I enter the attached restaurant and convince them to swap out the breakfast menu a little early by greasing their palms with some extra cash. I’m not in the mood for fluffy pancakes and crepes, and Leana had her heart set on spaghetti. We order everything to go, then step onto the veranda while we wait for our food. I don’t want anyone to hear our conversation. I’m not even sure Leana will talk about it with me, but she’ll definitely clam up if we’re in front of strangers.

The hotel is attached to a winery, and a light breeze brushes over the fields below and shakes the grapevines. It’s the sort of place where rich people go for brunch and mimosas, but we’re alone for now. I glance at Leana as another puff of wind plays with the strands of blonde hair framing her face. She looks so content. So serene. I hate to ruin it, but this conversation can’t wait.

“Wanderer,” I whisper as I lean against the balcony railing overlooking the sprawling vineyard. “What did your stepfather do to you?”

“Don’t ask me that,” she whispers, her head shaking. “It doesn’t matter what he did. It was wrong, and that’s all you need to know.”

“Are you afraid I won’t feel the same about you if you tell me? Because nothing you tell me would change the fact that I want toliveinside you.” I smirk, but I’m not sure she notices. My smile fades when she doesn’t speak. “I don’t think you’re dirty or used or broken because someone took advantage of you. What happened to you wasn’t your fault.”

She scoffs and blinks away a thin veil of tears. “That’s rich coming from someone whose brother forces himself on me regularly.”

“I’m sorry.” I grit my teeth as the truth of her words binds my chest with barbed wire. “I’ll talk to him about it. He’s not really capable of caring for someone, but I think he comes as close as he can with you. I think he’d stop if he knew it bothers you. He thinks you like it.”

Her hands tighten around the railing, and she meets my gaze. “But that’s the problem, Gentry. I don’t want him to stop. I do like it. What the fuck does that say about me?”

I try to pull her against my chest, to comfort her the way she comforted me, but she pushes away. I let her have her physical space, but I won’t back down. She made Karson and me work through our shit last night, and now it’s her turn. “Let me in, wanderer. Let me give back what your stepfather took away when he hurt you.”

“Hurt me? That’s the understatement of the fucking year. More like he emotionally wrecked me, ruined my life, and shit on my soul,” she says. “Do you really want to know what he did to me? What he did to a terrified child foryears?”

I swallow and nod. I’m not certain I want to hear any of it, but it might help her if she finally tells someone what she went through.

She swipes her eyes, her chin shaking beneath her lower lip. “It started shortly after he married my mom, but I didn’t realize it began there until years later. He’d buy clothes for me and ask me to model them while my mom was at work. I thought we were just playing dress up.” She scoffs and stops speaking. I don’t think she’ll continue, but she takes a deep breath and presses on. “It only escalated from there, but slowly at first. Coming into my room at night. Telling me he could make me feel good, but we had to keep it a secret.” She turns to me, her eyes hard and cold. “It never felt good. It felt scary and wrong.”

“Did you tell your mom?”

She laughs and folds her arms over her chest. “Yeah, eventually. It went further than touching when I was sixteen. Just before my eighteenth birthday, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to her and told her everything. I expected her to be angry, and she was, but her anger was directed at the wrong person. She called me a liar and said I was cruel to make up such terrible stories about a man who worked so hard to provide for us. That’s when I left.”

“And that’s when you met your fiancé?”

“Yeah, after traveling across the fucking country.”

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