Page 9 of Never To Suffer

Using his thumb, he pushes my jaw, forcing me to look away from him. Xander’s a neck man, and I like to tell him he was a vampire in another life. Some days, it might let him get fake fangs and bite into my flesh to see if it releases any of the flames that have built inside me. To feel that warm trickle of blood and let him live out that fantasy. The rip and pop noise pulls me out of that fantasy as he rips my fishnets and panties.

“Xander!” I moan, low and loud, driving him on.

“I’ll buy a new pair. Promise. Or better yet, stop wearing them so I can bend you over anytime I want a taste of you.”

“Would you? Would you bend me over in a library and slide that dirty tongue through me?”

“Every damn day. Open your mouth.” I do as he asks, and he pulls up my t-shirt, stuffing the hem between my lips. “Good girl. Now, don’t let go.”

I almost do when his tongue flicks the metal bar that goes through my nipple, but I bite down, screaming in bliss into the fabric. My nails claw at his arm, but he grabs my wrists, letting go of my neck. With one hand, he pins my arms over my head, and with the other, he undoes his belt and pants. The way my hips rock forward, begging him to fuck me, makes him laugh that low, menacing chuckle that has me in a trance for him.

“Bratty little slut, making me work hard for this.” He leans in, whispering next to my ear. “You’ll pay for that later.” He pushes into me, but not the way I expect him to. When I’m a brat, it means I want it rough, but he insists on teasing me with short, shallow thrusts. “Maybe I’ll edge you tonight. Make that cunt of yours throb all night for me until you wake me up, begging for me to fuck you into the mattress. Make you cry for me while I fill your throat.”

I whine through the shirt still in my mouth, screwing my eyes shut. That’s when he slams into me so hard my toes lift off the ground for a moment as he pins me against the wall with his hips. Xander doesn’t have a stacked body, because he’s a runner. In his clothes, he looks damn near scrawny, but when the clothes come off, it’s a different story.

“Dani,” he moans, running his nose along mine; his heavy breath against my skin as he holds me there. “How did I ever deserve you?”

He thrusts hard and deep, still holding my arms against the wall but using his free hand to play with my clit until there’s nothing in the universe but him and the way he makes me feel. I can’t hold out, and he doesn’t want me to, not the way he’s slamming into me, full of lust and need. When he releases my arms, I fling myself around him, listening to him grunt, sucking hard on my neck as he rails me against the wall. I hold his head against me until he comes inside me with a wicked moan.

His mumbles don’t always make sense after sex, like today, a handful of noises and a scatteringI love you’sas he slips back down to earth. Once he’s ready, he carries me to the bedroom and cleans me up before taking care of himself.

Stepping out of the bathroom with those cute, nerdy glasses on, he flops onto the bed, quick to snuggle around me. “I love you, Dani.” He leaves soft kisses along the same spots on my neck that I’m sure will have bruises tomorrow, pulling the blanket over us both. As soon as he turns on the screen of his phone, I roll over and bury my face in his chest, listening to the way it rumbles as he reads to me from the second book in the Lord of the Rings series. He does voices like he’s reading to a child, but I don’t stop him. It’s cute. I doze off somewhere around the part with the talking trees.

Morning comes, and Xander drives us to one of our favorite breakfast spots in the valley. We leave early, so LA looks like a movie scene for an apocalypse movie, or the pandemic a few years back. No one here likes to get up before noon if they can help it. And at six in the morning on a Saturday? It’s a ghost town. A few hours from now, Porto’s will have a line out the door waiting to place their orders and send the worker bees into a dance down the refrigerator cases. I enjoy standing in line and watching them buzz around almost as much as I love looking in at the fruity, glaze covered cakes and tasty treats. But today, I prefer to be left alone at a table.

“You know what I wish they had? Cuban toast.” Xander laments as he places a tray of food in front of me with a breakfast burrito and torrejas. “They have everything else, but man, Icould have gone for a solid Cuban toast with cheese and a cafe con leche with way too much sugar in it. Someday, I’ll take you to get a non-Californian Cuban breakfast.”

He sets down two overflowing bags full of delicious treats that should last us a week or more, but won’t last the weekend. Cheese rolls, Croqueta de Pollo, and as many little desserts as he could get, I’m sure. This place isn’t expensive if you have self-control, but he knows when I get a look at those bakery cases, all self-control goes out the window and I order one of everything. Two, if it’s one of my favorites. I’m not an expensive jewelry girl, but I am a foodie with a high metabolism and a bottomless pit for pastries and sweets.

I lean over and fix a piece of Xander’s hair that’s sticking up. Even with day-old product in it, it’s somehow still soft and inviting. The warm caramel color should be a juxtaposition to his ice gray eyes, but to me, everything about him screams cozy and tender.

“I heard it has something to do with the air in Los Angeles not being humid enough,” he rambles, trying to get me to talk.

I bring the cup to my lips, feeling the burn as it slides down my throat. It needs more sugar, but it will do. “I don’t know, Xan. I’m Mexican, not Cuban.”

“Fair. Do you want to start with breakfast or dessert? And for once, that’s not sexual. I got you that mango thing you love.” He reaches into the bag and pulls out a little box and a fork, handing them to me. “Here you go.”

His fingers lace between mine, and he squeezes just enough for me to look up. There’s something in his face that chips away all the existential dread hounding me. Like his smile tells me this will all work out somehow so long as we have each other.

“Come on, you hot, nerdy, rich boy, let’s go home and take our bed back from the mice. You can feed me sugary mango cakes all day while we watch old sci-fi movies in bed.”

“Will you be naked at some point?”

“You know it, big guy.”

CHAPTER 5

APT

ROSÉ/ BRUNO MARS

I’m notsure if it’s the arctic temperature in the room or Xander’s hard-on poking me in the back that wakes me up after only a few hours of sleep. I shiver, and Xander’s instincts have him wrapping around me, which also makes him grind against my ass. A scream comes from one of the other apartments and realize our neighbors are going at it again, and thanks to these paper-thin walls, it’s like they’re here in the bed with us.

A wild banshee’s scream ofYES! MICHAEL! OH GOD!has a half-awake Xander sitting upright too fast and falling out of the bed. Luckily, our bed isn’t anything but a mattress on the floor, so he didn’t have far to fall. The way he scrambles back up into the bed should make me laugh, but I cringe instead.

“What is it? What’s the matter!?” He asks as he rubs his eyes and looks around the bed like the intruder would crawl on four legs and squeak.

Because oursdo.

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