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  “It’s just… it’s weird, you know?” I murmur, unable to help myself. “To know you’re never going to see someone again.”

  I glance up at Rory, and he’s looking right back at me, something I’ve never quite seen before burning in his eyes. I scramble internally, trying to think of something to say to lift the mood or change the subject, but before my brain or my mouth can get very far, Rory leans in and kisses me.

  I immediately stiffen a little, not sure what to do or how to react. My head spins with the question that won’t stop eating away at me.

  Does he know what Sloan did?

  He wasn’t there, but I have no idea if he was in on it or not. All of the guys have been acting like nothing happened, and it’s fucking impossible to tell who knows what. I should be shoving him away or at least making some excuse and getting him out of my room. It’s too uncertain, and I don’t want to be here, kissing someone who might have been part of my dad’s death.

  But his lips are on mine, and we’ve done this enough times that kissing him is almost familiar by now. My body responds, no matter what kind of torment my mind is in. Maybe I just need the comfort and the connection.

  It’s not a long kiss, and when we break apart, Rory’s gaze finds mine.

  “I know what you mean,” he tells me. “It is weird. It’s awful, losing people you love. When Piper was born, I wished more than anything that my parents were still alive—that they could’ve met their granddaughter, and that she could’ve known them. But all I can do is try to be the best dad possible to her, and to show her the kind of love my folks raised me with.”

  I lick my lips, still able to taste him on my skin. They feel bereft without the firm warmth of his mouth pressed against them, and I lean back a little in an effort to resist going in for another kiss.

  “How do you reconcile your job with your kid?” I ask, my fingers twisting into a knot on my lap. “Those two halves of yourself—how do you make them fit together?”

  A look of surprise passes over his face, but he doesn’t seem put off by the question. “I mean, I’m not going to sit here and say it’s easy. Piper’s my whole life, you know? And Jen… we were never really together, never really deeply in love or anything like that, but I care about her. She’s my friend and the mother of my daughter. She matters a lot. We’re doing this together, even if we’re not together, together. I know firsthand what it’s like to grow up without parents, and I don’t want Piper to ever have to feel like that, so I do as much as I can. And I keep all the gang shit away from her as much as I can. Jen, too. She doesn’t belong in that world. I’d do anything to keep them safe.”

  There’s protectiveness in his voice, like he’s really serious that he’d do anything it took to protect Jen and Piper, to make sure nothing bad happens to them, and I like hearing it. The love and loyalty is so plain in the way he talks about them, like he really means it when he says his daughter is his whole world.

  I remember seeing them together. The way Piper threw herself into Rory’s arms and how he scooped her right up and swung her around, laughing so happily. It was the sight of a dad who was genuinely glad to see his child.

  It reminds me of my own dad in a way. How he always made sure I was his whole world, or at least that I felt that way.

  Fuck. I really, really want to believe Rory doesn’t know anything about my dad.

  I want to believe that someone with that much genuine care for other people wouldn’t be able to sit here with me and talk about dead parents and how much he cares about his own family with a straight face if he knew. I really fucking want to believe that I wasn’t that wrong about him.

  He’s always been the one who’s the most laid-back and easygoing. The one with the quick smiles and teasing comments. He’s still part of a dangerous gang, and I know it’s dumb to think he’s never killed anyone before, but I just need to believe he’s not the kind of person who would go behind my back like that and then lie to my face.

  At a loss for what to say or what else to do as emotions tangle almost painfully inside my chest, I close the distance between us once more and kiss him, putting one hand on his shoulder for balance.

  I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I can’t stop myself. I’m so fucking confused about what I should be feeling, and the part of me that’s still in shock and mourning my dad’s death is desperate for connection. For something to make me feel less alone. Less broken.

  Rory doesn’t pull away. In fact, he puts his arms around me and draws me closer, making a soft, hungry noise against my mouth.

  My eyes flutter closed, and I lean into it, moving with him, pressing my lips harder against his as if the contact between us will solve everything.

  As if I’m searching for answers to all my questions in this one kiss.

  3

  I don’t find the solutions to my problems or my questions while I’m kissing Rory.

  But still, as much as it probably shouldn’t, it eases something in my chest.

  The fierce ache fades a little, until it no longer feels like my heart might simply stop beating, giving out under the weight of the grief I’m carrying. Rory’s lips move against mine, slow and unhurried, nothing like the way he kissed me when he pressed me up against the fridge the morning after I slept with Levi.

  He knows I’m fucked up in the head, and he kisses me like he’s trying to remind me that he’s here—that I’m not as alone as I feel.

  Eventually, it becomes more about the pleasure of kissing him than anything else. The pressure of our lips grows harder, our breath mingling in the space between us. His hands are on me, one of them sliding up into my hair and threading through the strands to hold on tightly.

  I move closer, making a soft noise of encouragement while I sweep my tongue against the seam of his lips, teasing him into parting them and teasing my tongue with his. He chases it back into my mouth, and he kisses me like he wants to lay his own claim there, making me breathless and shivery.

  My heart is pounding, but for once, it’s not with anger or fear. There’s something so relieving about being able to leave those emotions behind for even just a second, to let myself give in to the connection between me and Rory.

  He bites down on my bottom lip, and I moan for him, shifting closer. Pleasure is a damned good distraction from the darkness of my thoughts lately, and I take it, pulling back so I can pant for breath.

  I’m still not close enough to him, though. Unable to stand the inches of space that separate us, I throw caution to the damned wind and climb onto his lap.

  Rory laughs, and it’s a low sound that almost feels like a physical touch as the tension heightens between us.

  “Eager?” he teases me.

  “Nah,” I taunt back, my voice husky. He grins widely.

  As if calling my obvious bluff, he reaches up and untucks the corner of my towel, sending it unwinding and dropping down to the floor, exposing the fact that I’m still completely naked from my shower.

  He groans at the sight of me, feasting his eyes on my body for a second before his hands get in the mix. They’re big and calloused, proof that he’s definitely worked with them before. The rough pads of his fingers feel so damned good on my chest, and I can’t help but moan when he strokes them over the soft skin of my tits and then hefts each of them in his hands.

  “You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he murmurs.

  “Me, or my tits?” I shoot back, breathless.

  “Both.” Rory chuckles, then thumbs the peaks of my nipples, making them tighten even more.

  “What is it…” I start, and then break off with a little moan when he takes one nipple between his thumb and finger to pinch and twist it, tugging it away from my body and making me arch. “…with men and tits?”

  “They’re soft.” Rory grins wickedly and pinches my other nipple as well, sending a jolt of heat through my body. “And when I do that, you make the best sounds.”

  He’s not even wrong. I can feel myself getting wet, my puss
y going slick and needy, just from him playing with my tits. He lets up on the pinching, smoothing the slight bursts of pain away with gentle stroking that has me panting after only a couple of seconds.

  My nipples have always been sensitive, and just the way his fingers tease at them has me rocking in his lap, moving so I can spread my legs and straddle him properly.

  “I should have known you’d like this,” he murmurs, those green eyes dark with desire as they flash up to my face quickly. “A little pain with your pleasure. Just to keep it interesting.”

  He punctuates that by twisting my nipple again, this time harder, and I can’t stifle the cry it draws from me, or the way it makes my body throb with my own desire.

  “Fuck, Rory,” I pant, and it sounds almost like begging.

  He picks up on it too, his grin turning even more wicked around the edges.

  “I know what you want,” he murmurs. With one last soothing stroke, he moves his hand down from my chest, ghosting his touch over my stomach and then further down. “You know what you want, too. Don’t you? I bet you’re so wet already.”

  He doesn’t even give me a chance to respond before he’s touching me again, sliding one hand along the mound of my pussy, just on the outside and not close enough to where I want him yet.

  I whine softly, and he laughs that breathy laugh but doesn’t make me wait too much longer before he gives in.

  Clearly he wants to touch me just as badly as I want him.

  Of the three of them, Rory’s the only one I haven’t gone this far with yet. I’m pretty sure he knows I’ve done stuff with both Sloan and Levi, and now that he’s got the chance to have his turn, he seems determined to make it a good one.

  His fingers find my wet center, and two of them slide between my folds, finding my clit with ease. It throbs, almost in anticipation of his touch, and when he presses the pads of those fingers into the sensitive button, I moan and let my eyes fall closed, hips rocking against his hand in search of more friction.

  “Does that feel good?” he asks, and it comes out sounding half like dirty talk, half like he actually wants to know.

  So I nod, because it feels really fucking good.

  Spurred on by my response, Rory increases the pressure of his fingers. My eyes snap open as heat flares through me, my entire body clenching with a jolt of pleasure.

  Hungry to get my hands on him too, I reach down between us and find the hem of his shirt and shift him enough that I can yank it over his head. It takes his hands away from my body for a second, but it’s worth it for the view.

  His chest is well defined, leading down to a firm and toned stomach and a trail of hair that disappears into the waistband of his gym shorts. He’s hotter than hell and just as dangerous for me, and I feel like I might spontaneously combust just from looking at him.

  After giving me a few seconds to blatantly ogle him, Rory’s arms come around me, and he grips my ass hard, dragging me closer and into another messy kiss.

  Our lips collide, and as our tongues dance, every single thought seems to flee my head.

  The only thing I’m focused on in this moment is the hot, slick feeling of his mouth against mine and the way I can feel him getting hard under me. I rock against him, whimpering softly when I hit the bulge of his cock just right, sparking heat between our bodies.

  He groans, fingers digging harder into my ass, and I wonder if he’s going to leave fingerprints behind. I sort of hope he does. I don’t know why, but I like the idea of being marked by him, of him leaving an imprint of himself on my body.

  Maybe it’s because some part of my brain knows how stupid this is. It knows this should never happen again—that it shouldn’t even be happening now—and it wants something to remember him by.

  His hands roam up and down my back, then wind into my hair once more, yanking my head to the side so he can kiss at my neck, blazing a hot trail from ear to shoulder with his mouth.

  “Rory,” I pant. “Fuck.”

  He just laughs again and surges his hips up so he can grind against me. The heat between us just keeps climbing, wrapping around us like a bubble that shields us from the rest of the world. I’m only focused on the man beneath me, the heat and hardness of him, the way his mouth feels as it roams over my neck.

  I reach down and stroke him through the thin material of his gym shorts, and I’m rewarded with a muted curse and another pulse of his hips pressing upward. He’s so hard, and I keep teasing him, dragging the fabric of his shorts against the curve of his dick until he growls in frustration.

  In a second, he’s moving, dumping me off his lap onto my back on the bed. He shifts up onto his knees for a second so he can shuck off his shorts, and I stare at the sight of him completely naked.

  He’s the tallest and the bulkiest of the three guys I’ve been forced to live with, and he has a cock to match. It’s thick and long with a slight curve in the shaft, and Jesus—it’s just as goddamned fucking hot as the rest of him.

  If I wasn’t already wet as hell, I definitely would be now.

  “See something you like, Hurricane?” he teases, taking in my expression with heated eyes.

  I can barely respond. My mouth has gone completely dry as I take in his cock and the rest of his body. His skin is tanned, a little lighter at his hips and thighs where it’s gotten less sun, and there are so many chiseled planes of muscle that my greedy gaze can’t even take them all in at once. I want to run my tongue over each one.

  Before I can try to lick him all over, he moves closer and grabs me again, lying down on his back and pulling me on top of him.

  Instead of being in a position to kiss him again, he arranges us so I’m staring right at his cock, watching the bead of precum ooze at the tip. The sight makes my mouth water, and I don’t need any more encouragement to lean down and work my mouth over the head of his cock, licking up that salty drip with relish.

  “Oh, fuck,” Rory groans. “Should’ve known you’d be as talented with your mouth as you are with your fists. Goddamn.”

  I smirk and work myself lower, taking him halfway down. This position makes it so when I spread my legs wider, Rory has a firsthand view of my soaking wet pussy, and my walls clench as my body reacts to that thought.

  The first touch of his tongue against me makes me jump, even though I’ve been expecting it. I can practically feel the smirk against my folds as he drags his tongue in a slow line, like he wants to lick me up. It feels fucking good, and I moan around my mouthful, lowering my hips even more so that I’m practically sitting right on his face.

  Rory grabs my hips, keeping me in place, and he works his tongue in another slow line, determined to make me feel every inch of it as he savors me. For a second, I’m lost in what he’s doing and the way it makes me feel, but then I remember that there’s a cock in my mouth and two can play this game.

  While he’s teasing me, I tease him right back. I draw myself up his cock, letting my tongue tease and swirl around the shaft, until just the head is left in my mouth. While he laps shallowly at my pussy, I suckle at the mushroom head of his dick, pressing my tongue against the slit and leaving the rest untouched.

  His hips buck up a little, trying to bury the rest of his dick in my mouth, but I don’t give in. Instead, I press my hips down further, clit throbbing with need. It’s pretty clear that this is going to be a give and take, and Rory chuckles, the sound half muffled in my wetness.

  But he gets the picture and is clearly done being a tease. His tongue finds my clit with easy precision, and he presses the tip right to it, giving it a firm flick that makes my breath catch. I don’t know what it is about being eaten out that always makes me go a little melty, but it always seems to happen. And Rory is fucking good with his mouth.

  He brings his hand into it too, taking one off of my hip and stroking the parts of my pussy not being worked over by his tongue. His fingers glide around my folds until they find the center and my wet hole, and then he slides one thick finger inside, making me moan ag
ain.

  As a reward for him making me feel good, I work my way right back down on his cock, sucking messily, letting spit slick the slide as I hum around him.

  Rory’s hips buck up again, and I let him do it this time, allowing his cock to hit me in the back of the throat. It’s big enough that I gag a bit, but that doesn’t take me out of my rhythm even a little.

  Instead, it makes me work harder, and I swallow around him, slurping my way back up while I grind my hips down on his face even more.

  He seems determined to get me to come like this, and it’s not going to take a lot for him to get his way. His fingers sliding in and out of my core feel amazing, and even though they’re not as thick as his dick would be, I’m not complaining, especially when he’s going to town on my clit the way he is, teasing it by circling his tongue around it before giving it more firm licks.

  I can feel that molten heat starting in my core, spreading outward and making me feel heavy and flushed with pleasure. My toes curl a bit, and I pull off of his cock for a second so I can catch my breath.

  “Oh, god. Shit,” I pant, rocking my hips in time with the way Rory is fucking my pussy with two fingers, licking up the juices that keep flowing from how turned on I am.

  I get lost in that feeling for a second, totally forgetting about what I was doing to his cock, but then he lifts his other hand from my hip and slaps my ass with it, reminding me that this is a two-way street.

  I roll my eyes and consider teasing him just to be a shit, making him wait for it or barely flicking his tip with my tongue. But I’m getting so close to coming, an orgasm building in my core and spreading heat through my body. I don’t want him to stop licking me as a way of teasing me back.

  No. I want to come like this, with his face buried in my pussy.

  I want it more than I want anything else in this moment.

  Grinding my hips against his face a little, I wrap my lips around his length and get back to sucking his cock.