King of Sloth (Kings of Sin, 4)
King of Sloth: Chapter 25

“I can’t believe you did this to me.” Sloane’s breathless accusation whirled through the air as I spun her out. Her dress flared around her knees in a silky blue cloud before it settled languidly against her skin. “You took me to a salsa club. I’ll never forgive you.”

Amusement kicked the corners of my mouth up. “Why?

Because you’re enjoying yourself too much?” “Because I don’t know how to salsa.”

“You’re doing just fine, Luna.” I pulled her back in, one hand molding to the curve of her lower back while the other guided us through the music. “Not everything you do has to be perfect. Remember our dance lessons in Spain? Just let go and have fun.”

We were at an underground salsa club in Greenwich Village. The clientele ranged from beginners to professional dancers who’d won world competitions. That was the beauty of the club. Everyone was welcome, and no one judged.

We’d arrived two hours ago, and with Jose Cuervo’s help, I’d coaxed Sloane into joining me on the dance floor. She’d relaxed enough to follow my lead, but not enough to fully immerse herself in our surroundings.

“Our dance lessons.” Sloane tipped her chin up to look at me. Exertion flushed her cheeks, and her eyes sparkled in a way that made my heart hurt. I knew she was guarded, but I hadn’t realized how much until she let those guards down. “I barely remember them.”

“Well, now I’m hurt. After all the effort I put in, you don’t remember? Next time, just lie to me.” I spun us lazily toward the edge of the room. It was a small club, which meant there weren’t many pockets of free space, but I wanted Sloane to myself as much as possible.

“That’s not what I meant, you big baby. I meant Spain feels like a lifetime ago, and…” A hitch cut into her breath when I slid a leisurely hand up her spine.

“And?” I prompted.

Her dress was cut low in the back, and silk soon gave way to smooth bare skin. It glided effortlessly beneath my touch, its warmth turning my blood to liquid fire and muddying my thoughts in a way that would’ve been dangerous if I gave a fuck.

This wasn’t the type of club our friends or acquaintances frequented. No one knew who we were, which meant we were free for the night.

“And…” Sloane’s eyes closed for the briefest moment when I brushed the sensitive skin of her nape. “I can’t believe it’s only been a month.”

“People can live years in a month if they do it right.” I curled my hand around the back of her neck and rubbed a gentle thumb against her skin. “Since you don’t remember, we’ll need a refresher.”

An arch of her brow, paired with wary amusement. “Do we?” “We do. I take my teaching role very seriously.” I dipped my head, closing the distance between us until her breaths grazed my lips.

We hadn’t kissed since the library. I wanted to take things slow, but when I was near Sloane, what I wanted was irrelevant.

I didn’t want her. I needed her. Desperately.

I needed her the way the ocean tides needed the moon, and I would give anything for her to feel a fraction of the same way toward me.

“Let go,” I repeated softly. “Listen to the music. Lose yourself in it.”

Uncertainty wavered across her features.

For Sloane, control was a necessity, not a luxury, but we all had to relinquish control sometime. Otherwise, our world would always be limited by the arbitrary boundaries we drew around it. “No one’s watching.” Her back faced the wall, and my body shielded hers from the dance floor. We pressed tight against each other, close enough for me to hear the battle waging between the steady thump, thump, thumps of her heart. “It’s just us, Luna.” In the background, fast-paced music segued into the smooth, alluring beats of a new song. Smoky vocals wound through the air, and the rhythm of the couples around us slowed to match.

A swallow slid up and down Sloane’s throat. “Okay,” she whispered.

Her response hit my blood like a shot of vanilla whiskey.

We were talking about dance lessons, but they were the last thing on my mind as I guided her through the steps.

It was an intimate venue, just big enough for a hundred at a time and dim enough to unfasten people’s inhibitions in the shadows. Amber lights glowed overhead, accentuating the curves of Sloane’s cheekbones and the shiver of her body as my hand drifted from her neck to the small of her back again.

She started off stiff, but she moved with natural precision, her body turning in sync and her feet following mine without missing a beat. However, the longer the music played, the more her movements flowed. Steel melted into silk, and the wariness in her eyes softened into something that sent a rush of heat through my veins.

Lessons were technical. Impersonal. This? This was as personal as it got.

“You said you don’t pass first base on the first date.” Her gaze flickered beneath the lights. “What about the second?”

Her question sent a shock through my system, the earlier heat igniting into an inferno that razed every other thought I had to ash.

There was only her, and this, and us.

“I could be convinced.” My husky drawl betrayed the desire coiling in my body. My skin stretched too tightly over my muscles, and if I didn’t taste her soon, I would implode.

Sloane smiled as if she knew exactly what was going through my mind.

She stood on tiptoes and, after a brief, agonizing moment, brushed her mouth against mine.

That was it.

A single brush, and the leash on my restraint snapped.

One hand dove into her hair, cupping the back of her head while her arms circled around my neck. The other pushed us back against the wall until our bodies molded into each other.

I didn’t give a fuck who was watching. No one else except her existed in this moment, and I couldn’t get enough of her—the softness of her lips, the sweetness of her taste, the little moans and gasps as I explored her mouth with the hunger of a man starved.

If kisses had colors, this one would reflect the tatters of control swirling around us, a symphony of crimson and amber and pure, stunning cobalt. They sank beneath my skin, sending electric currents over every raw, exposed nerve.

In a world of black and white, she was my kaleidoscope. “Xavier.” Sloane’s breathless pant slipped through my haze.

“We should leave. Go somewhere more private.”

A surge of lust outpaced my desire to prolong this moment, and I pulled back, soaking in the sight of her swollen lips and heavy-lidded eyes. Strands of hair fell from her messed-up bun, and a strawberry flush decorated her face and chest.

I’d never seen anyone more perfect.

So fucking beautiful, and so fucking mine.

I leaned down and captured her mouth in another lingering kiss. “I know just the place.”

Sloane and I barely made it through the door before the first piece of clothing hit my living room floor.

The drive to my house had been short, but those ten minutes had felt like an eternity when she’d been sitting there, beautiful and willing and wanting. If we’d hit one more red light or meandering pedestrian, I might’ve crashed the car out of sexual frustration.

But we’d made it, and the air thrummed with urgency as we stripped each other bare.

Dress. Shoes. Shirt and pants.

I unclasped her bra and tossed it to the side. She tugged my boxers down, and I kicked them behind me.

There was neither rhyme nor reason to the ferocity of our desire, but when the last stitch of clothing slithered down her body, I didn’t give a damn about rhyme nor reason.

Moonlight slanted through the windows and found the curves of Sloane’s body, sculpting shadows beneath her breasts and draping silver across her shoulders.

Long legs. Creamy skin. Hair that gleamed pale beneath the moon’s kiss. She looked like a goddess come to earth, but the most beautiful thing about her wasn’t her face or naked body.

It was the trust behind it.

She was standing here, in my house, bared and vulnerable, and I wasn’t stupid enough to take any second for granted.

Sloane’s lips parted as my hand skimmed over her shoulder and up her neck to touch the twist of hair on her head. It was mussed but still intact from our previous activities, and the urge to see it tumble over her skin flared hot and bright in my gut.

“Take your hair down, Sloane,” I said quietly.

I expected hesitation, but her eyes didn’t leave mine as she reached up and slowly removed the pins keeping the twist intact. Her hair unwound, lock by lock, until it cascaded around her face in a waterfall of pale silk. The tips brushed her breasts, and I couldn’t breathe past the tightness in my lungs.

Every time I thought she couldn’t get more perfect, she proved me wrong.

“Good girl.” I gathered her hair in a fist and tugged her head back. The rise and fall of her chest quickened, and a small smile touched my lips. “I like it better wrapped around my fist.”

The air shifted, heady anticipation exploding into raw, unadulterated lust.

Sloane gasped when I pressed her against the wall like I had at the club, only this time there was no one around to witness the way I nudged her thighs open with my knee or hear the moan she released when my fingers brushed her pussy.

Every muscle went taut as my cock gave a painful throb. Fuck. Me.

She was wet, so wet that I could easily slide inside her right now without much friction, but I hadn’t come this far to rush the best part.

I liked to play before eating.

“You’re dripping already, Luna,” I drawled, swiping a lazy thumb over her clit. My lips curved with satisfaction when her back bowed in time with another gasp. “We’ve barely gotten started.”

Her eyes fluttered open again, and she slanted a narrow-eyed glare at me. “Are you going to keep talking, or are you going to finish what you started?”

A rumble of laughter rose in my chest. That’s my girl. Sloane wouldn’t be Sloane without her sharp tongue, even when she was pinned naked beneath me.

“I always finish what I start.” I tightened my fist around her hair and gave it another tug. Her head arched, baring her throat, and a small quiver rippled through her body as I traced the delicate length of her neck with my mouth.

Bit by bit, I mapped her skin with kisses until I reached the flutter of her pulse. I paused, savoring the replace, before I slid two fingers inside her and pressed my thumb firmly against her clit.

Her pulse went fucking wild.

“Oh God!” Sloane’s hips jerked, and a keening cry left her lips as I pushed deeper until I was buried knuckles-deep inside her. Her nails scored deep crescents in my shoulders, but the sting only intensified my pleasure. I loved seeing her like this. Wild, uninhibited, and so damn beautiful that it made my heart ache. “Xavier, I…that…ah.”

Her words gave way to an unintelligible string of moans and whimpers as I finger fucked her sweet little cunt. She writhed so powerfully, I had to release her hair and hold her down with my free hand.

It wrapped around her throat, not enough to hurt, but enough to prevent her from bucking me off as shudder after shudder wracked her body.

My cock was so hard, it felt like the skin would split. I hadn’t touched it, but I didn’t need to when touching Sloane was enough.

“That’s it,” I murmured. I coaxed her closer to the edge, curling my fingers just enough to hit her most sensitive spot. “Let go, sweetheart. Come for me.”

And she did.

Her body stiffened, and a hoarse cry tore from her throat as she came apart beautifully around me.

The convulsions rolled into one another, soaking my hand and prolonging our pleasure until she finally slumped against me, weak and breathless. “Fuck.”

My chest muffled her voice, and another laugh shook my shoulders as I withdrew from her.

“I told you I always finish what I start,” I teased. “Quite quickly, I might add.”

Sloane lifted her head, her eyes sparking with amused challenge. “Don’t act so smug when you haven’t been tested yet.” My cock gave another painful throb. “Valid point. Test away.

I’m your willing guinea pig.”

Her laugh followed mine. “Tip: Never use the phrase guinea pig in the middle of sex.”

“Technically, we’re not in the middle—”

The rest of the sentence died when she pushed me off her and onto the couch. I landed on the cushions with a small grunt, but my surprise sharpened into hunger when she straddled me.

“Maybe test was the wrong word.” Sloane leaned down so her nipples grazed my chest. An electric spear of need pierced through my body. “I bet I can make you come faster than you made me come.”

“Always so competitive.” I was too distracted by the delicious proximity of her breasts to my mouth to come up with a wittier reply. “What does the winner get?”

“Bragging rights.” Sloane drew my bottom lip between her teeth with a gentle nip. “Loser lives with the eternal knowledge the other is better.”

“Deal.” I pulled her head back so she looked straight at me. “Stop talking and sit,” I said, paraphrasing her earlier question into a command. “I want to see you ride my cock.”

Fire blazed in her blue depths. She planted her hands on my shoulders and pushed herself up, her eyes locked on mine as she positioned the tip of my cock at her entrance.

“I’m on birth control,” she said. “And I’m clean.”

“Me too.”

That was all I managed to say before the murky waters of lust closed overhead, amplifying the thunder of my heartbeat as she sank onto me, inch by inch, until I was buried deep inside her.

Her mouth opened in a small gasp, but the noise that came out of me was so raw and guttural, it sounded more like beast than man.

Tight, hot, and so fucking wet.

We fit so perfectly it was like God himself had custom carved us for each other, and when she moved, it was like sliding home into heaven.

She started slow and sinuous, but her rhythm soon picked up, and I had to grit my teeth and mentally run through my pitch presentation for the Vault just so I didn’t embarrass myself by coming too early.

“You feel so damn good.” I groaned, my head falling back so I could drink her in.

Sloane bounced up and down on my cock, her hair a mess, her face flushed with exertion. The sounds of flesh slapping against flesh filled the room, and I was so lost in this, in her, that I didn’t give a fuck about the bet.

I grabbed her hips and slammed her down, eliciting a sharp squeal. I thrust up to match her pace, and the volume of our grunts and moans intensified until I came with blinding force.

My vision whitened, streaks of lightning racing behind my eyes, and I vaguely heard Sloane cry out in pleasure before I regained some form of control over my senses.

When my vision finally cleared, she was just coming down from her own orgasm. She smiled down at me, her expression a mix of post-coital bliss, triumph, and something else I couldn’t identify.

“I won.”

“You did.” I pulled her down and gave her another kiss. “Bragging rights for life.”

I didn’t mention how neither of us had timed the encounters, so who really knew who’d won? That wasn’t important.

A warm, heavy blanket of contentment draped over me as we lay in companionable silence and waited for our pulses to return to normal.

I’d spent my whole life chasing the next high. When you had everything, everything got boring fast. I wanted bigger, better, faster. I wanted something that would last, and when Sloane rolled to the side and curled up against me, I knew I’d found it.

This was my greatest high. Her, sated and happy, in my arms. Nothing in the world could ever beat this moment.