Page 61 of Unlocked Dive
“Does this mean—” I suck in a breath. My dick is still hard, and he just brushed across the head. “Does this mean she’s actually on our side?” I was expecting a reaction like Elke’s, skeptical and protective.
“She wants you at Cici.”
Right. Preferably not dragging around the corpse of her best friend’s heart, I’m sure.
Maybe Byrd and I don’t have a side. Maybe all we have is a bubble of time to enjoy our miracle before it pops and spits us back out into the real world.
Byrd is on his knees on the rough blacktop of the driveway, unbuttoning my jeans.
And I know I’ll take whatever I can get, for as long as I can get it.
26
Byrd
“Fuckingfuck.” Echo steps out of the handstand with less than his usual grace and collapses, flopping over onto his back at my feet. “I get why Reggie’s pissed atyou,” he grumbles, “but why is she punishing me? She’s the one who decided to trap me in an isolated mansion with a hot-as-fuck rope god. What did she think was gonna happen?”
“Feeling a little petulant?” I smirk down at him, admiring the sheen of sweat on his bare torso and the succulent pout of his lips. He’s adorably bratty today, and it probably shouldn’t turn me on as much as it does, but I’ve given up rational thought where he’s concerned.
“I’m feelingfrustrated.” He squints up at me. “I haven’t gotten laid in almost three days, and my hand is too sore and tired from these stupid handstands to jerk off.”
Reggie sent the skill list for Echo’s evaluation the morning after I came clean, and I’ve been running him through the requirements nonstop to make sure he’s ready. I’m not worried about the rope portion—five compulsory skills he’s going to nail with no problem and a list of ten recommended tricks to choose another five from. The list also includes some basic acromoves, which Echo says are all pulled from his original audition video and has been able to demonstrate with reasonable confidence out on the lawn. Once he’s on the spring floor at the gym, he should be more than fine.
The last set Reggie’s requesting is three handstands: a kick-up, a press, and a one-minute hold against the wall. All three should be in Echo’s wheelhouse, based on his prior training, but handstands put a ton of pressure on his wrist and the small muscles that support the bones of his hand. It’s a good way to measure his recovery, and I don’tthinkit’s meant as a punishment, but after watching him struggle all morning, it’s starting to feel like one.
“We can take a break.” I lower myself to the floor next to him and take his hand, massaging the sore muscles as I lean back against the couch. He moans in pleasure, snuggling closer to rest his head on my thigh. “Feel like getting out of the house for a bit?”
“I was thinking about a different kind of training.” He turns his head and sinks his teeth into my jean-clad inner thigh. “Two hours of you hovering over my ass spotting me is giving me all kinds of dirty ideas.” He raises his eyes to mine and bats his smoky lashes. “Threedays, Byrd.”
“Poor baby,” I murmur, but not in protest. It’s well-established at this point that being around Echo has destroyed any restraint maturity might have gained me over the years. As soon as I stopped fighting the inevitable, it became painfully obvious that I am completely gone over this man. My heart is a shipwreck waiting to happen, and I can’t make myself care. “I’m not sure you need any more ‘training’ in that area, but I’m happy to put you through your paces if you’re feeling deprived.” I move one hand from his wrist to his hair, tugging in that way that exposes the pale line of his throat and leaves him gasping.
“The training part is for you,” he pants, rolling up onto his knees and sucking my lower lip into his mouth.
“Mm-hmm?” I chase the kiss, tightening my grip at the base of his skull before he can pull away. His lips part and melt molten under my invading tongue. Yeah, three days is definitely pushing it. My heart is beating hard, its echo a heavy throb in my thickening cock. “What did you have in mind?” I ask, pulling back enough to breathe the words across his lips. Personally, I’m thinking how pretty he’ll look with rug burns on his knees and my cum dripping out of his ravaged hole, but after that, I could be up for anything his deviant mind desires.
“How many times have you had my fingers inside you?” he asks, and despite the heat of the words, he’s not teasing now.
“A few.” Not that I don’t enjoy it, but I can never hold myself back for long without taking over, turning the pleasure back on him and the way he lets me play his body like my favorite instrument.
“And never more than two at a time. What about on your own? Ever tried taking a dildo?”
“Um, a long time ago.”
“In a galaxy far, far away.” He rolls his eyes. “Before Lara, I’m guessing?”
I shrug. The more time I spend with Echo, the deeper I understand the tragedy of my formative sexual years under Gabriel’s tutelage. Sex was about makinghimfeel good—the teacher with the never-quite-explained assignment and the student who always fell shy of the perfect mark. It was brutal to brush the edge of rapture but never quite capture it, always wondering what more I could find to give. Over the years, I made myself very, very good at reading the language of pleasure in other people’s bodies. As if by filling them all the way up, thatrapture might spill over into me, but I never took much time to learn the language of my own.
I told Echo there was no magic in my bedroom skills, and it wasn’t a lie, whatever he believes. But there is magic between us—magic that comes fromhimand the miracle of how he wakes to me. With his constant, fearless heart, and his body so wideopen,his rapture fills me up a thousand times over every time we touch.
So yes, most of our encounters involve me turning him inside out and piecing him back together, all the while both knowing who’s really in control.
“You need practice.” He smirks at me, stroking his cock lazily and no doubt reading my last thoughts. “You think if I get three fingers inside you, that will prepare you for taking this cock?”
My eyes drop to the hand wrapped around his erection, thick and straining in his thin joggers, a wet circle of precum spreading from the tip.
“Maybe four?” I arch my eyebrows at him, and he rewards me with a wicked grin.
“Four?” He drags his tongue across his fingertips and brings them to my lips, forcing them inside until I’m sucking on all four long fingers. The calloused texture is so different from the silk of his cock, but when he twists deeper, the strain in my jaw is familiar, as is the brief flare of euphoric panic when he presses against the back of my tongue and I struggle to pull in air through my nose. Right before I choke, he pulls them back, glistening with my saliva, and uses them to coat his now exposed shaft, teasing over the thick head. “Practice,” he says again, in a low tone that sends electricity straight to the spot behind my balls. “And it’s my turn to play coach.”
