The Wicked
: Chapter 18

Sweatpants have never felt as fucking good as they do right now. With Chinese food ordered and Criminal Minds reruns playing on my TV, I finally curl up on the couch with a very large glass of wine after the longest first day of school ever.

I can’t even begin to unpack everything that happened today, so fantasizing about Spencer Reid is the best distraction I’m going to get. There’s something about his nerdy little body that just does it for me. That, and his big ass brain. I love a man who can out-talk everyone in the room.

My phone buzzes on the coffee table, but I’m too comfortable to reach forward and grab it. Every muscle in my body hurts, I’m not sure why. I feel like I ran a marathon today instead of sitting at a desk, watching a classroom.

I start to daydream about my giant bathtub filled to the brim with scalding water and bubbles, when there’s a knock at my door.

Groaning as I get up, I say a curse under my breath as I head for the door to get my Chinese food.

My stomach growls as I reach the door, hunger making me pull the door open quickly to get my hands on my takeout, and I replace Hayden Monroe standing on the opposite side, cocky grin in place.

I hold on to the door for support as my legs go weak, my eyes widening with surprise. “What the fuck?”

My head swims with nerves, and he chuckles before he points to my sweatshirt. “Cute.”

I look down at my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt I got when I was fifteen at Disney, then back up at him. “What the fuck?”

He puts a hand on the doorframe. “You said that already.”

My mouth opens, but no words come out. I just stand there like a fish, blubbering and confused.

He takes a small step forward. “Can I come in? I feel like a salesman.”

I shake my head, snapping back to reality and replaceing the clarity I need. “No! What are you doing here?!”

His eyes replace the floor, and then they snap back to me. His voice is tight, hesitant. “I don’t know.”

The answer catches me off guard, but it isn’t the words that have me stepping to the side and letting him come in, it’s the tone of his voice. Somehow, the sentence sounds small and compact, like he was afraid to say it out loud, like those three words were him ripping down some wall that’s been between us all day.

They weren’t cocky and arrogant, confident and smug. He sounded fucking scared.

I close the door once he’s walked past me, turning to put my back to it to look at him. “What are you doing here?”

He turns around when he’s about ten feet from me and yells, “I don’t know, P!”

I shake my head and sigh. “You can’t just show up at my home. How do you even know where I live?”

He walks toward me, shaking his head as well. “It’s a long story.”

When he’s right in front of me, he stops. He doesn’t touch me, doesn’t say anything, he just stares at me with those dark eyes – and I get lost. I stop breathing, every muscle in my body grows taut, and I almost reach out for him. There’s something behind his features that makes me feel at home, safe.

I blow out a breath. “What are you doing here, Hayden?”

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he whispers, his eyes dropping closed like he’s embarrassed of what he’s saying. “This has never happened to me before, but I needed to see you.”

I don’t want to admit I can’t stop thinking about him either, but I also don’t want to lie, so I don’t say anything back. We stand in silence for a moment, Hayden with his eyes closed and my attention focused on his eyelids that are twitching in thought.

“Hayden,” I say softly, making his eyes open slowly. “You can’t be here.”

“Why not?” He slams a hand on the door behind me, and I jump. “I want you. I can’t get you out of my fucking head.”

I blow out a breath slowly, tucking my hair behind my ears and replaceing his eyes. There’s something so delicate and tortured in his gaze, something that feels wrong coming from someone who generally radiates control.

Gone is the arrogant guy that pinned me against my car earlier. Now, he’s different. He’s opening up, showing me a color of himself I didn’t know was there. Where he’s normally a deep ebony, right now, he’s a dull blue. Still dark, but with a touch of fear and vulnerability.

Something inside of me cracks for him. The resolve I’ve been holding on to slips just an inch, making me reach out to touch him. I trace the pads of my fingers up his arms, across the black tattoos that scar his skin, and he sucks in a breath.

He’s warmth and freezing cold at once, making my head spin so much that I want to fall over.

“I can’t stop thinking about you, either,” I whisper, the words feeling so right but so wrong.

He leans forward, almost tentatively, his hand joining the other above my head on the door. Time stands still around us, and I watch as he contemplates what to do next. His lips drop open, and he continues to move closer, so torturously slow that I can’t breathe.

My hands freeze on the backs of his muscular arms, and I press my nails into his skin lightly, urging him to kiss me, to break through the last barrier between us and claim me. Take me for his own.

He licks his lips, then leans forward the last few inches to put his lips on mine. His kiss is soft, so fucking light that I barely feel it, and he groans in the back of his throat at the tease of our connection.

“Tell me you want this,” he says, his voice husky and pained. It makes butterflies attack parts of my stomach I didn’t know existed.

I suck down a breath in a panic, feeling desperate and scared and excited all at once.

“I want this,” I say, replaceing his eyes burning into mine. “I want you.”

His body falls forward at the same time his mouth slams against mine, every inch of him touching every inch of me. We both groan in relief, and I squeeze his arms with my fingers, kissing him so deeply that it feels like we’re absorbing each other through our mouths.

Hayden keeps his hands flat on the door above my head, using his body to deepen our connection instead. His hips roll into mine as his teeth bite at my lips, his chest pressing against me as his tongue flicks inside my mouth, his thigh threading between my legs to put pressure against my clit, and I replace myself grinding against him.

Moaning, I press my nails into his skin harder – not enough to puncture, but enough to tell him how fucking crazy he’s making me with his skilled mouth.

His lips nip at mine before he kisses down my face to my jaw, to my throat and around my neck, where he sucks my skin between his teeth.

Pressing his thigh harder between my legs, he bites me, and I moan so loud that it echoes around us.

“Hayden,” I cry out, begging him. “Touch me.”

He bites me again in the same spot, making me hiss between my teeth. Grabbing his hair between my fingers, I yank his head back so I can look at him. His face is red, and his mouth is wet, his eyes filled with desire and fire.

“Touch me,” I breathe, rolling my hips against his thigh.

He smiles devilishly, leaning forward and capturing my mouth with his for the briefest of moments before his hands fall to my sides. I moan from the contact, admiring how he watches me grind my hips again.

When he pulls his leg back, I gasp at the loss, and his hands slide underneath my sweatshirt to my burning skin.

“Arms up,” he says, raising my sweatshirt.

I comply, lifting my arms and letting him remove it until I’m left topless in front of him. Throwing it to the ground, he bends downward to pull my nipple into his mouth. He sucks on the bud, swirling his tongue around playfully while his fingers play with the other.

He pulls back an inch and speaks against my skin, his eyes replaceing mine.

“I’m going to make you come so many times tonight that you don’t remember your name afterwards.”

My skin burns, my head floating above my body like I’m not really here, and my clit pulses so painfully between my legs I want to scream. All I can do is nod as I breathe through my mouth and stare at him, unable to replace any words that might portray the things he’s making me feel.

He grins at me before licking a line down my stomach, then he drops to his knees in front of me, sliding his hands underneath the material of my sweatpants and pulling them down.

Letting me step out of them one by one, he pushes them to the side, then admires the lacy thong I’m wearing underneath them.

His hand runs down the front of me, making me moan. “Look how wet you are already, soaking through your panties.”

Before I can respond, he leans forward and sucks the lace between his teeth and moans in his throat.

He pulls it back from my flesh with his teeth, then lets go so it slaps back into place. I gasp, using one hand to yank them down my legs. He chuckles at my impatience, but it barely registers. I just kick my panties to the side and grab his hair to press his face between my legs.

“Jesus,” he groans, sliding his hands up the backs of my thighs to grab my ass. His tongue slides between the lips of my pussy, straight for my throbbing clit. My head falls back against the door with a loud bang as he licks me quickly, thoroughly, torturing my clit with the tip of his tongue.

“Oh my god,” I cry out, and one of his hands smooths down my thigh so he can lift my leg onto his shoulder. He uses the same hand and curls it so his fingers can slide inside me, and I hear him groan in the back of his throat. I spread myself open for him, giving him better access.

He’s slow and diligent with his fingers, rubbing them against my G-spot and creating a burning ache in my core that only he can put out.

His tongue slows too, flattening against my clit as he uses the movement of his head to continue to eat me with ease. I feel my orgasm blooming in the pit of my stomach, making my legs shake and my fingers tighten in his hair.

“That’s it,” he growls against my clit, his fingers picking up speed to impale me. He flicks his tongue against the solid bundle of nerves a few more times before I explode around his fingers, my release dripping down his hand.

And that only makes him lick faster, letting me buck against his face powerfully as my climax claims me fully. I shout his name again and again, pulling his hair so tight that he groans in pain and pleasure between assaults with his tongue.

“Hayden,” I moan as I start to come down, the leg I mindlessly secured around his neck relaxing so he can move. His gaze flicks up to look at me as he continues circling his tongue around my clit, and when I wiggle my hips and twitch away from him from the sensitivity, he chuckles against my flesh.

He pulls back, kissing my thighs and stomach and pussy. “I love the way you sound when you come.”

My legs tremble as I hold myself up and watch him kiss my skin from below. He’s kind and soft with his lips, making sure he touches every dip and curve with those pillows as he makes his way upwards. He kisses through my breasts as he stands, then up my neck and chin, to my lips, where he swirls his tongue into my mouth.

I suck on his tongue, moaning around it at the taste of my release, and his hands wrap under my ass to lift me.

He presses his erection against my bare pussy through his pants and need tingles in my core again.

Releasing his tongue, I grab his shirt. “You have too many clothes on.”

He chuckles, holding on to me and carrying me across the room to the couch. Once he puts me down gently, he stands up to look at me.

I’m sat with my legs spread open, every part of me on display for him while he stands above me and burns me with his gaze.

He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, his hands clenching and unclenching a few times at his sides as he scans my naked body, then he groans deep in the back of his throat.

“You’re perfect,” he whispers, his voice catching like it can’t get any louder for such an intimate sentence.

I smile at him as his eyes return to mine, and something inside of me clicks and flips. This man, with so much darkness behind his eyes, is showing me a side of him that he probably hasn’t shown to a lot of people. I don’t know why that turns me on so much, but it does, and it has me sitting up straight and popping the button on his pants.

He’s hard as stone underneath the fabric of his boxers when I pull his pants down past his ass, and my mouth waters in anticipation.

I graze a fingertip over the fabric, along the swollen shape of him, and he groans.

Licking my lips, I grab the waistband of his boxers and tug them down. His cock bobs as it’s freed from the confines, and I lean forward and trail my tongue along the length of him.

His hand flies to my head, almost like instinct, and I look up at him through my lashes as I make the motion again.

Groaning, he tightens his hand in my hair.

I flick my tongue over the head of his cock, gathering the precum that’s leaking out and moan between my lips as I swallow it down.

His nostrils flare as he blows out a breath through his nose, his gaze glued to mine as I lean forward and suck the head of his cock into my mouth.

He moans, but pulls me back by my hair so he pops out again. “No.”

My brows furrow, confusion and something that feels like rejection flooding me and making my face hot. “What?”

He shakes his head, stepping back. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Hayden.” I reach for him, but he steps back, shaking his head again.

“Stand up,” he orders, ripping his shirt over his head. I don’t move a muscle, though, admiring the chiseled edges of his chest and stomach, running my gaze over the intricate designs on the skin there. My mouth drops open, and he takes a step toward me. “Penelope.”

I reach out for him again, running my fingers over his tattoos, trying to brand them into my memory. He’s a work of art, a canvas filled with everything that makes him human, and it’s fucking amazing.

“You’re perfect,” I breathe, repeating his words from before, and his breath hitches when I make the descent downwards to his cock. Circling my hand around him, I squeeze him and pump my fist a few times.

He grabs me under the arms, lifting me and plastering my body to his. I wrap my legs around his waist, feeling the wetness from between my legs press against his stomach. He kisses me then, using one hand to thread his fingers into my hair at the back of my head so he can control my mouth.

I moan, feeling the skin of his cock brushing my ass from underneath.

He takes a step toward my bedroom door, and then there’s a knock at my front door.

“Oh shit,” I say, and he freezes. “I ordered food.”

He chuckles, putting me down on my feet again. “Hurry up.”

Throwing my sweater over my naked body, I head for the front door. I pull it open enough to grab my food, say a quick thank you to the driver, and then shut it again. Turning to look at Hayden, a cold shiver runs through my body, and I stand frozen with my bag of food hanging from my hand.

He takes a step closer, reading something on my face. “P…”

I shake my head, backing up enough that my back hits the front door, overwhelming unease taking residence within me. “No, no, no. What the fuck have I done? We can’t do this.”

“P,” he says again, taking another step forward. “Don’t do this right now.”

I clutch the bag of food against my chest, the warmth from the food comforting me. “This was a mistake.”

He’s in front of me then, having closed the space between us in a panic, his hands threading into my hair. “Don’t do this.”

“You’re a student,” I whisper, closing my eyes in fear that he’s reading my mind, controlling it somehow.