A/N: SMUT ALERT! Wow, a gift just in time for the holidays ✨ xoxo Ami

***

twenty-three | paris

a law enacted in 1799 making it illegal for women to wear men's clothes – including pants – in public within the city limits of Paris remained in place (though not enforced) until 2012

RAYNA

May 8th, 23:51 (GMT +2)
7 days until it happens

I DRESS MY wounds. The ceramic basin of my sink swirls pink with blood. Fresh, splotchy bruises melt across my torso.

He has a mean left uppercut, I'll give it to him. Not to mention the things he was able to do with his infuriating fucking mouth. Miraculous, cruel, incandescent things.

It's decided. I'll rip his eyes out but keep his tongue intact.

***

JAKE

May 9th, 00:09 (GMT +2)
6 days until it happens

THERE'S AN ACTIVE shooter skulking around the perimetre of the UK embassy and all I can fucking think about is Rayna's sopping wet cunt.

When I check in with the lead commander on site, he balks at the sight of me. "Christ, Morgan. Did you get run over by a lorry?"

"Yeah, something like that."

I'm knackered but wired, so tense I could drill my fist through cement. Even after leaving her behind, I can't escape her. Her scent, her laughter, her fire. I've been singed; the burnt edges still sting when she's not around.

"Morgan, you cover the north gate. Choudhry, take the west wing. Radio once you've cleared."

Fuck. If not for this bloody bellend with a gun, I'd be balls-deep inside her right now, nailing her to the wall. Or the bed, or the carpet. Fuck it, all three and more – why choose. "Shoot to kill, sir?"

"Negative. Disarm if possible."

I'll disarm his bloody knob...

***

RAYNA

May 9th, 00:29 (GMT +2)
6 days until it happens

MY FINGERS AREN'T working.

I try one of my vibrators. I try another. I try a dildo. Nipple clamps. Porn. Audio porn. A smutty romance novel. I press and push and pull but all I do is frustrate myself. I lay in my bed, naked and sweaty, twisting and turning futilely into the sheets. Nothing does it.

There's only one thing my body wants.

Fantasizing about crushing Jake's stupid face between my open thighs is nearly enough to throw me over the edge.

Nearly.

I fist the covers angrily. My face still stings from where he slapped me. I want him to do it again, and worse.

I dig a vicious finger inside me and try pretending that it's his.

(It doesn't work.)

***

JAKE

May 9th, 00:34 (GMT +2)
6 days until it happens

RED AND BLUE lights and a swirling blare of sirens muck along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The offender is being cuffed and stuffed into a Paris Police car.

The blokes hang around the cordoned area as someone strips away the yellow stream of CAUTION tape. "There's a pub around the block," one of them tells me. "You coming? Boss's buying."

I scrub a hand over the back of my neck. A drink sounds absolutely bloody brilliant.

The vice-like press of Rayna's soft legs around my hips roars through my mind, louder than the sirens.

"Nah, you guys go on. I've got something to take care of."

***

RAYNA

May 9th, 00:52 (GMT +2)
6 days until it happens

I GIVE UP. If I have to be miserable, so does he.

I don't know what god-awful hour he'll be returning, but there's no way in hell I'm waiting for him.

I tug on a pearly-thin nightgown and slip out into the hall.

His room is two floors down from mine. I'm gonna masturbate all over his shit so it smells like sex when he gets back.

My slippers thud along the corridor. My flushed skin tingles. I loathe him so fucking much that he's the only thing I can think about.

***

JAKE

May 9th, 00:53 (GMT +2)
6 days until it happens

PARISIAN ELEVATORS ARE shit.

Her room is two floors up from mine. I take the stairs from the lobby a pair at a time, the maroon carpet dense beneath my shoes.

The stairwell is dim, bathed in weak tufts of golden light. The wooden bannister streaks beneath my restless hand as I charge up the steps.

Footsteps plod impatiently down from the opposite direction.

My soles hit the fifth-floor landing when a small, fierce body tumbles into me.

***

RAYNA

May 9th, 00:53 (GMT +2)
6 days until it happens

I BARREL STRAIGHT into a hard, broad chest. Fresh sweat and gunpowder and oaky-rich cologne. My heart flails.

He's a couple steps beneath me and he's still taller. Heavy hands clamp my waist to steady me.

A soaring feeling rises in my lungs when I realize he was en route to my room.

Stormy grey eyes smash into mine. Overwhelmed with too many messy feelings and hating how desperate he makes me, I whip him across the face with the flat of my fingers.

But he doesn't push me away. He yanks me closer.

"Missed me?" he murmurs, raspy and wry, leaning our sticky foreheads together.

"Shut up," I whisper hoarsely, clutching his head in both hands. "Don't talk. Don't say anything, not a fucking word..."

Nothing more than a thick, low hum, "One thing we can bloody well agree on."

Our mouths collide in a frantic, breathless tangle. I'm tripping into his arms and he's holding me, close, bone-crushing, fervent.

My hands fist his hair, his fingers gnarl through mine, our tongues wage violent, frenzied war. I've never been kissed with so much hunger, have never been so hungry for another person ever before in my life.

He gives my ass a ragged squeeze through flimsy silk while I hurry to unfasten his belt. I'm fighting with the buckle when his fingers dip beneath my nightie and plunge between my legs. My teeth bite into his lip in shock, his gravelly groan rolling through me when he finds me totally bare and utterly soaked for him. He rubs my clit with a trigger-worn fingertip and my mouth claws open.

His belt lands on the ground with a clang. I'm wrestling up his t-shirt next, needy for the thrumming warmth of his skin on mine. Pulling at cotton and wrenching at denim, not leaving his lips for a sordid second.

He lifts me off the stairs. I wind my legs around his middle and he thrusts me into the wall, coarse fingertips peeling down the pastel-pink strap of my nightgown. I scramble at his strong shoulders as he presses hot, wet kisses down my throat, his scruffy jaw scraping the delicate skin red. His weight traps me in place while he squashes my tits in his huge hands, tugging my puckered nipples with his teeth and using his tongue to lathe away the sting.

"Jake..." My voice is strangled and uneven. "Now. I need it..."

For once, he doesn't tease me. "Fuck, I know you do, love," he grumbles, our noses nudging. He trails his long fingers up my thigh and pushes them crudely through my slippery, quivering folds. "I'm gonna fuck this sweet little cunt all night," he promises, "til you can't take another inch, and then I'm not gonna stop. Not even if you beg. Not even if it kills you."

"I never beg," I whimper on cue, a broken, shredded record. My hand skates down his lean, tanned chest, reaching for him. Our breathy moans blend in the sultry gap between his mouth and mine when my fingers wrap around his cock. Hard and thick and pulsing into my grasp. I slip my fist along the length of him, my lips going round with awe. My insides clench.

He chuckles knowingly against the bridge of my nose. "Scared?"

I give the crown of his dick a soft pinch and he growls, a trickle of precum seeping from his slit. My snappy retorts wither in my throat as my hips rock searchingly towards him.

Frayed reckless with need, I drag his cock towards the centre of me. Our heads bump, my eyelids growing heavy as I watch the tip of him glide through the slick, swollen mess between my splayed thighs. "Fuck," I breathe, high-pitched and whistly.

"Fuck," he agrees gruffly, gripping onto himself and pressing the head of his cock tauntingly against my strumming clit. "Rayna," he grunts, strained, "Condom..."

His room is one minute and a million planets away. "IUD," I tell him, frazzled. Our work requires regular physicals, and I've already had his blood and saliva all over me anyway. Right now, nothing in the universe matters except having him inside me.

"We can't..." His shoulders are taut with tension.

"Do it. Jake..."

Sighing his name is the closest I'll ever come to saying 'please', and he knows it. He doesn't ask if I'm sure. He doesn't argue. He seals his mouth over mine in a deep, dirty kiss. With a sharp jerk of my hips and a harsh thrust, he hammers himself into me. A loose, wanton cry tears past my parted lips.

"Oh, fuck..." he growls, hot breaths fogging my ear, "So fucking tight, sweetheart. You sure you can take it?"

My fingernails gnaw into the feverish planes of his shoulder-blades, hiccups of shallow breath bursting from me. He's so big it feels like he's gonna rip me in half. Tears of relief prick my eyes. "Don't be a wimp," I croak, buckling urgently towards him. "More, Jake..."

Clutching onto bruising handfuls of my ass, he slides out and then rams himself back inside me. My pussy clings to him, sucking him in deep. Our wild, throaty noises echo through the stairwell. "You drive me..." Another forceful pitch of his hips pounds me into the cool paint so hard my skull crackles against it, "...stark raving mad, Rayna," he husks raggedly.

He lifts a burly hand to my neck, stretching his long fingers around my throat. He tightens his hold enough to be vaguely hazardous. A thrilled rush jolts from the pressure of his fingertips.

I am so wound-up that every forceful slam of his hips has me teetering on the brink of madness. "Jake," I moan, "Harder."

He pummels himself into me so hard that a teardrop streaks down my cheek. He fills me so completely, stretches me so, so far. He gives it to me harder, faster, deeper. Deeper than anyone's ever fucked me before. The slapping-moist sound of our bodies is loud, profane. "Fuck, Rayna..." His grip on my throat cinches. A wicked glint darkens his eyes. "After tonight you're gonna feel me inside you for weeks."

"Oh, Jake," I gasp, clumping onto his hair to keep me anchored as his cock drives into me, "I'm gonna come..."

He brands me with another searing, consuming kiss. "Fuck yes," he praises. "That's right, darling. So fucking filthy, Rayna. Come all over my cock..." His rocky voice scrapes my flushed cheek.

My orgasm shreds through me, the burning knot of pleasure curling my toes, thrashing my skin, flattening me to the wall, crippling me. I'm calling his name helplessly, over and over, a flash of unbearable heat gushing between my trembling thighs.

My limp head lolls onto his shoulder. He chuckles, tugging me by the hair. "I'm not done with you yet," he rumbles. The triumph in his voice, as if he's sure he's fucked me docile, lights a fire in my belly. I push at his shoulders, forcing him back towards the staircase. He peels me off the wall and carries me over to sit on the steps. I clutch at his head, curling his hair in my fingers as I bounce and rock and grind on his lap.

"Mm... Fuck," he grunts into my ear. He holds me by the ass and smothers my boobs with his searching-wet mouth while I try to stifle my helpless whimpers. "Yeah, that's it, love. Ride my fucking cock..."

He's hard and throbbing, nestled deep inside me. This man has the stamina of a monster...

Oh my god, I'm about to fall apart again... Sweat licks my forehead. I want him to be the one crumbling to pieces. I gnash at his lip with my teeth and his cock twitches inside me. My nails rake across the rippling muscle of his shoulders. He lets out a thick growl. He reaches between my legs and gives my clit a flick and that's it, I'm drowning again, waves of pleasure crashing over me, pulling me under, making it hard to breath. "Jake..." I curse, a husky cry. It's too much, too intense... "I hate you..."

Low, rumbly, a faint slither of amusement, "Given up already?"

I shake my head in defiant protest, and he chuckles. Then he's slipping me off him and flipping me around, bending me over the stairs so the carpet chafes my flushed skin. My fingertips dig into the steps, scrambling for purchase as he grabs me by the hips and punches into me again.

"Is that the best you can do?" I provoke, even as the length of him stretches me beyond sanity. At this point, I'm asking to be put into a coma. With a huff, I reach back and impale my nails into his arm, nearly hard enough to break skin.

He grumbles, displeased. He yanks a fistful of my hair and tugs, rasping into my ear, ruining me with his cock, my back arching, my body clenching everywhere. "You like being treated like a dirty slut, huh?" I'm panting and gasping, I can't help it. "Teasing me and making my life hell. All because you wanted me to fuck the shit out of you." He uses a firm hand on my back to shove me deeper into the staircase. It turns me on so hard when he's mean—I'm so wet it's streaming down my thighs. "No one will ever give it to you this good."

I try elbowing him but he's nailing my wrists into the stairs, pinning me with the heaviness of his body while I thresh and flail, trying and failing to give him hell for it. "Jake, you motherfucker... oh my god..." I grapple at a metal baluster to steady myself.

I'm holding in the loud, distressed noises of discomfort and ecstasy threatening to spill, but he husks, "Louder, Rayna. Let them hear you. Let them hear how much you need my cock..."

"Ah... Jake...!" It tears from my throat, desperate and wild. The scratchy rug abrades my knees, rasps my nipples, grates my chin, my entire body heaving with each thrust.

Rough, his lips brushing the hilt of my spine, "Yeah, just like that. Fucking take it, Rayna..." Kissing the nape of my hair, brushing his lips over my shoulder. His balls slap against my clit with each heavy roll of his hips. I moan and writhe and press back into him, needy and lost.

Then I'm airborne, his dick lodged inside me, my legs twined around his waist. Our foreheads stick together and I'm kissing him with so much hatred that it burns. He carries me naked down the hall back to his room, leaving our clothes behind, forgotten.

Inside, it's a warzone. Toppled lamps and mangled clothing and shards of shattered glass and trickles of spilled blood spewn across the carpet.

He lays me on the bed, both of us groaning at the slip and slide of our feverish bodies against each other, against the cool sheets.

His biceps strain as he holds himself on top of me. "Give in, Rayna," he teases hoarsely into my ear. "Tell me you've had enough and I'll come."

My throat streaks raw as I gulp. I shake my head, too breathless to say another word, hair matted to my sweaty temples. My pussy feels sensitive and swollen and battered, but I'm too proud to admit defeat, even if it kills me. "Jake..."

I clench myself tighter around him and he moans into the side of my neck. "Where do you want me to come, love?" he grunts. His thrusts have grown sloppy and jagged, I know he's getting close to losing it. "All over your gorgeous tits," he gives my peaked nipple a brush with his thumb, "all over this pretty, wicked face..." He skims his knuckles across my cheekbone and I nuzzle into his hand.

"Inside me, Jake," I whine, my hips pushing up into his. "Come inside me..."

He releases a long string of gravelly curses against my lips. "Such a naughty girl for me," he murmurs. "Your pussy feels amazing, love. Oh, fucking hell, I'm..." With a ragged suck of breath, he's growling, his cock tightening inside me, his entire body going rigid before his release shudders through him.

"Oh, Jake..."

"Oh, fuck, Rayna..."

I feel him spill himself deep inside me, his dick pulsing, hot cum jetting into me. Ripples of pleasure flow from the centre of me. The solid weight of him pins me into the covers. Our hands grapple and glide, fingers wandering and catching, exhausted, trying to wind down from the high of it.

When we detach, I feel cold and empty, suddenly vulnerable. He made me weak, and he knows it.

I slip off the side of the bed onto my wobbly feet. His cum dribbles down my sticky thighs. But instead of going cold and caged, like I'm used to, like I was prepared for, he rasps, "Where d'you think you're going? C'mere." And then he's tugging me into his bed, into his chest, beneath the crisp drape of his sheets, our yawns murking together.

I'm too tired to argue. I melt into him, into sleep, limbs tangled, his lips pressing into my scalp, sore and sated, the smell of our sex hanging sweet and earthy in the air.

My future self is gonna hate me in the morning.

***

Author's Note [Dec. 23rd, 2022]:

THEY FINALLY DID IT!!! 😭😭😭How was it? Did you ✨ feel ✨ anything?

Just FYI I'll be taking a week off from updating over the holidays. (Also, I reallllyyyyy need to write more otherwise I'm gonna be in trouble.) See y'all in the new year!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!! Love you!

xoxo Ami