Her inner walls trembled along my cock, her heart thundered along next to mine, and her nipples were pebbled and sharp where they rubbed against my chest. Her tongue twisted and stroked along my own and her hold was just as desperate, just as needy, as mine. I could feel my pleasure coil and tighten at the base of my spine, felt my body start to shudder. I lifted my head from where I was devouring her and told her:

“You have to come with me.”

She tossed her head side to side and I felt her grind her hips up against mine where I was trying to hold off rocking into her with everything I had.

She curled her arms around my sides and lifted an eyebrow up at me.

“Then stop messing around and give it to me.”

That startled a laugh out of me, which had me grinning down at her. “I don’t want to hurt your head, smartass.”

“So give me something else to think about, pretty boy.”

Shit. That was a challenge I had no trouble meeting. I braced my hands on either side of her head, made sure her gaze focused on mine, and did just what she asked—gave it to her.

I thrust into her, moved over her, ground our bodies together in a way that made it feel like I was trying to meld us together—and maybe I was. Considering I was already close, already on the brink of coming just by looking at her naked and willing under me, it only took a few minutes before I was breaking apart inside of her and not aware if she was there with me or not. Luckily she was a vocal lover and easy to read, because by the time I was done grunting and jetting into her, I could hear her whimpering and feel her pulsing around me.

I gave it a second, until both of us were breathing more normally, and rolled onto my back so that I was sprawled out across the bed next to her. She laced our fingers together and kissed each and every single one of my busted-open knuckles.

“Thank you for taking care of me, Race.”

Of course she wasn’t talking about the sex, even though that would be an awesome stroke to my ego.

“Thank you for giving me something good to always come back to, Brysen.”

She was the balance I so desperately needed.

Chapter 17

Brysen

CONSIDERING MY EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES the night before with Race, I was surprised that my head was only aching with a dull throb when he woke me up and told me he had to go. I was still sleepy, a little fuzzy, so while I thought he was saying something about Nassir’s club burning down, I couldn’t be sure. I thought maybe it was a dream, and as soon as the bedroom door closed behind him, I went back to sleep. I didn’t wake up again until I heard my sister’s breathy, high-pitched laugh and smelled bacon cooking from somewhere in the condo. I wasn’t supposed to scrub my head for another day or two, but the stitches were itchy, so I decided to go against the doctor’s orders and took a fast shower. I had a hard time looking in the fogged-over mirror when I got out.

My hair didn’t look like the worst thing on the planet, but there were dark shadows under my eyes and hard lines next to my mouth that had never been there before. Having someone out for my blood, having a sinister shadow hunting me, getting the better of me, was starting to take its toll, and that was obvious on my face. Even with Race stepping in and handling all the other major issues life had thrown at me—my mom, finding Karsen and me a place to stay so we wouldn’t be homeless, trying to keep the two of us safe—it was still a lot to handle, and I think living through it all had me looking well over my twenty-one years.

Since I didn’t have anything at the condo aside from my purse and the small bag Karsen had thrown together for me while I was at the hospital, there weren’t even any magic tricks I could do with makeup to make myself look better. Not that I had anyone to impress. Karsen had seen me at my worst, and the brooding giant that was Booker had made it perfectly clear we were never going to be friends. He acted like getting thrown down the stairs was all my fault and I had just cracked my skull open to make him look bad in front of Race. He was even more scowly and growly than he had been before, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why the more brash he was, the more my sister wanted to fawn all over him. I didn’t like anything about that.

I pulled on a pair of yoga pants and a sloppy sweatshirt and went to rain on my little sister’s inappropriate flirting parade. When I came down the stairs and rounded the corner, I was surprised to see Booker at the sink washing dishes and my sister sitting at the island with a sandwich in front of her. Her dark eyes got huge when she saw my chopped-up hair but they glimmered at me in approval.

“It’s cute, edgy, and a little punk rock. I can’t believe you did that yourself.”