Breaking Through Read online

  Eddie had pulled himself into a kneeling position and peered at her through the bars of his crib as she entered the room. Tufts of dark hair stuck out at the top of his head as he gnawed the edge of the crib. She didn’t turn on the light and didn’t lift him out, and wouldn’t unless she needed to. Instead, she greeted him with a singsong voice and tucked her hand into his pyjama bottoms.

  ‘Oh, Eds, your timing is the worst but at least you don’t have a loaded diaper,’ she told him, resigning herself to a wet one. He didn’t babble and he never lost his grumpy expression, a good sign that he’d drop back to sleep as soon as he was changed and back in his bed.

  ‘Do me a favour and sleep right until six, OK?’ she said to him as she lifted him up. He looked at her blankly, then rubbed his fists against his eyes.

  A shadow flitted across the wall and startled her. She hopped to the door and peeked out just as Simon returned. She caught a whiff of the same hand soap she’d used.

  He jumped back with a sheepish look. ‘Sorry, I had to hunt to find the bathroom.’

  ‘I probably should have included that in the tour,’ she said quietly, grateful he had put on his jockeys rather than running around with his dick hanging out, and followed his gaze to the child in her arms.

  Eddie was wide awake now, his eyes saucer-like as he looked at the stranger dominating the entrance to his bedroom.

  This wasn’t a meeting she had hoped to initiate tonight, but there she stood with a baby in her arms as the man she barely knew and had brought home for bed-shaking sex leaned against the doorjamb and bowed his head towards the kid.

  ‘So you’re the bugger who threw my groove out the window.’ Eddie strained against Miranda’s chest to get a better look at the intruder. Simon shook his finger. ‘I’m going to remember this in about twenty years and be looking for an opportunity for payback.’

  Eddie grabbed the finger in front of him, and Miranda resisted the urge to pull it away as if he had gotten his hands on garbage. She wasn’t even remotely comfortable, yet she seemed to be the only one, as man and boy played tug-of-war.

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were –’ she began as Eddie joined his other hand with the first, but it was too late. Simon flinched as the baby twisted his finger, and she had to swallow her giggle as she remember how he had been so resilient when she had sunk her teeth into him.

  ‘I think the man of the house is trying to tell me the consequences of messing around with his aunt,’ he joked and finally freed his finger. The baby let out a wail and held his arms up.

  Simon reached out, and though she wasn’t sure she should, Miranda allowed Simon to lift her nephew from her arms.

  ‘Don’t get him too worked up, unless you want to play all night long,’ she warned as he let Eddie sit on his forearm.

  Simon leaned against the door and chuckled as every part of his face was subjected to a hands-on scrutiny.

  ‘You got any kids?’ she asked him.

  ‘What sort of vengeful God would let someone like me spawn?’ he said, though it seemed to Miranda that it was more to himself than in answer to her question. ‘I’m better off as immature Uncle Simon who gets the kids all worked up and then goes home. My sister hates my guts when I come to visit.’

  ‘I can see why.’

  Finished with his inspection, Eddie twisted around to look at Miranda and swiped the back of his chubby hand across his eye. She reached out.

  ‘All right, time to get back in the crib before the tantrum starts.’

  Eddie made a bit of a fuss as he was laid down, but he didn’t try to get up, and was silent as Miranda closed the door behind her.

  Simon trailed her to the bathroom. As she washed up, she laughed nervously. ‘Just to be clear, this is a first. I never bring men home when I have baby-duty.’

  ‘The look of horror on your face when I showed up in the doorway pretty much told me that.’ He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned intimately close. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude, though.’

  Miranda shrugged and began to dry. ‘It’s OK. At least you put your dick away.’

  He looked down his body and laughed. ‘Well, I am a gentleman.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, you’re a real prince.’ She lifted her foot and nudged his calf with her toe. ‘Ready to go back?’

  He gave her such a scoundrel of a look that she became ticklish, even more so when he tugged the belt of her robe. ‘Pick up where we left off?’

  He dragged her down the hall and she hit the light on the way. As soon as the bedroom door closed behind her, Simon whisked the belt open and pushed the robe off.

  Hands firm on her neck, he drew her closer and pressed his cheek close to hers. ‘Lie back and show me where you want my tongue.’

  Such an explicit request rattled a moan from deep in her gut. She curled her toes into the carpet and leaned into his body.

  ‘A very, very bad man,’ she said on a sigh.

  He gave her a gentle push. She lay back on the bed as she had when they first closed themselves in her bedroom but, instead of unleashing his cock as she had done before, she propped herself up on her elbows and drew her legs apart, and Simon fell to his knees.

  ‘Here,’ she said, her voice coming thick from the back of her throat as she rubbed her middle finger around her clit. ‘I want your tongue right here.’

  Simon skimmed his tongue across his upper lip, and his lids seemed to become too heavy to keep open. His lashes fluttered as his fingers followed his gaze to her moist sex. He evaded her clit, instead crooking his finger into her pussy.

  ‘Not here?’

  ‘I want your cock there,’ she said in a sigh, and lifted her hips as he added a second finger. ‘Later. After …’

  She slipped her fingers through his hair and made a fist as he lowered his head.

  Just as he had before they had been interrupted, Simon used his silky tongue to taste, swiping only the tip in a crescent and coaxing her clit to swell. Miranda remained still as long as she could, but once the flat surface of his tongue began to lap through her pussy lips she began to writhe.

  There was something so rich about having him between her thighs this time. In the car there had been urgency, and once in her bedroom there had been bravado. Now there was just the hush and the rhythm, her heartbeat drumming out a melody in tune with the motion of his tongue licking her. She couldn’t help but join it and rock against his greedy mouth.

  She kept up that perfect momentum by pushing with her feet and bouncing her ass against the bedding, until he withdrew his probing finger and pressed down on the insides of her thighs. The growl that came from him vibrated against her clit. Though she stared at the ceiling, she felt his intense gaze upon her as he sealed his mouth around her pussy and started to suck her.

  How he endured the desperate way she twisted his hair in her fingers was something she wondered only fleetingly as she climaxed. The rapture came out of nowhere, exploding through the swirling red mist created by the hot suction of his mouth, and wrapped her so tightly she couldn’t breathe.

  Her mind was still lost and fumbling through the fog when she became aware of him rising up over her. Shapes formed as the splotches before her eyes faded: Simon had lost his jockeys and unfurled a new condom down his dick, and he reached beneath her ass and lifted her.

  ‘Oh’ was all she could say as he pulled her onto his lap and quickly guided his cockhead to her slick passage.

  She wrapped her hands around his neck and slid along that rock-hard shaft. With every inch she became more lucid, and by the time he pushed her ass up Miranda was ready for him. She slipped her hands back into his hair, this time in the fluff at the back, and grinned at him as she began to push against the mattress to bounce over him.

  ‘Do you have any idea how dirty I feel right now?’ she said in the face of the expectation that was written all over him.

  He groaned. ‘I was wondering how long it would take before it set in that you’re not the good girl you think you are.’

&
nbsp; ‘I never said I was a good girl,’ she countered, shunting over the thick head that plugged her, ‘but there’s something about you that makes me feel incredibly naughty.’

  ‘That’s because I’m a very bad man and a terrible influence.’ He said with a breathless rasp. ‘I’m not your type. I should leave, but if I do that I’ll drive myself crazy wondering how good to me you can be.’

  ‘Maybe, but you’re my bad influence right now,’ she murmured, and pressed her lips close to his ear. ‘So big and hard for me, and I’m so wet. How’s that for good to you?’

  He clamped down and dug his fingers into the spheres of her ass. She realised she’d rendered him speechless with her body and her words. In moments he had gone from that grinning fiend to this grunting, rutting beast. He rolled her onto her back, keeping hold of her ass as he pumped her.

  As the force of his body driving into hers became frenzied she remembered those marks on his ass and closed her fist in his hair. The harder he thrust against her, the harder she twisted.

  Miranda egged him on, a filthy cheerleader chanting words into his head. With his grip keeping her down, his upper body crushing her, her voice and her hold on him were the only weapons left in her arsenal, and she made him bleed.

  ‘You gonna come in my tight pussy again?’ she hissed into his ear, and set him off like a bomb.

  He curled his fingers into the flesh and spread her open as he pounded into her and lost the rhythm of his thrusts. He dragged her into the chaos with him, and once more Miranda was left breathless as he pushed the air out of her lungs with every thrust.

  She held onto him, lungs burning from want of breath, as Simon became an engine running out of gas, then deflated completely and flopped away from her.

  ‘Jesus’ was all he said, his gaze vacant as he looked up at the light fixtures above their heads.

  Miranda squirmed next to him and slung her arm over his sweat-dappled chest. Her head fizzed, but at least she could see straight. Simon rolled his eyes and blinked, and after a moment he gave himself a shake.

  He turned his head to her and gave her a goofy grin. ‘So much for my plan to pace myself.’

  ‘Really? That was your plan?’

  ‘It was, and usually I’m pretty good at it, but as soon as you started with the dirty talk I couldn’t help myself.’

  He sucked in a deep breath, and as his broad chest lifted Miranda couldn’t resist running a flat palm across the expanse. His heart still thumped and his breathing was still erratic, but otherwise he looked absolutely spent. He groaned when he tried to roll over, and cursed as he tried again.

  ‘I know I talked big, but I don’t think I’m going to have it in me for another round,’ he told her.

  Miranda shook her head. ‘Me, too. Or, three. It was three, right?’

  He reached out and gave her hip a pinch. ‘Four, thank you very much.’

  ‘Oh, no, thank you, Mr Reeve,’ she tittered as he pulled her close.

  For a moment they only breathed together, her hand splayed on his chest and his on her waist. It was nice, and for a moment Miranda entertained the idea of just closing her eyes and letting him stay there with her throughout the night.

  Simon quirked a brow, and Miranda’s stomach flopped as though he had read her thoughts and decided that now was the time to bolt.

  ‘You don’t watch the news much, do you?’

  ‘Why? Are you a serial killer?’

  ‘No, but …’ He struggled up onto his elbow and seemed to be struggling for words. ‘I was all over it about a year ago. Do you remember the Connell Davis scandal?’

  ‘I remember seeing something about it on Twitter, but I never looked into it.’ She bunched the bedding beneath her head into a makeshift pillow and made herself comfortable for what she assumed was going to be a bit of a story, but Simon shrugged his shoulder.

  ‘I took the wrong job and got caught in some crossfire. I don’t really want to talk about it, but if we’re going to see one another again I wanted to put it out there that to some I’m considered a shady prick who’s lucky to still be walking the streets.’ He lowered his head towards her. ‘Are we going to see one another again?’

  ‘We already made a date for Sunday,’ she reminded him quietly, ‘and I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that you were a shady prick.’

  ‘My white-knight act getting you out of the rain didn’t work, eh?’

  ‘Not in the least bit, so you can probably cut the bullshit right now.’

  The bed shook as they laughed together. When he looked at his watch, Miranda wasn’t quite ready for the night to end. His resigned look told her that it was time to go.

  ‘Can I make you a late dinner before you go?’ she offered. ‘There’s cold pizza, or we could do a midnight breakfast.’

  ‘I would like that, but I have to be up and on the phone at nine, and I’m willing to bet that sleeping in isn’t an option for you.’

  As he dressed, Miranda wrapped herself in her robe and sighed with disappointment. When you got right down to it she wanted nothing more than to keep him, like he was something she had found on her travels and taken a shine to, but he was right. They both had their lives when the sun came up. No amount of hot sex and warm fuzzies was going to change that.

  At the front door, Simon clasped the handle and turned. ‘Sunday?’

  ‘Pick me up here?’

  ‘I’ll try not to get lost.’

  ‘If you do, you’ll have to let me drive your nice car to get us where you want – and I don’t have a licence.’

  ‘Uh! You wound me.’ He slapped his hand on his heart and stumbled back, then hauled her closer. He kissed her, a soft peck becoming firm as he squeezed her ass and lifted her onto her toes.

  They parted with simultaneous groans and Simon opened the door. He got one foot over the threshold before he turned back.

  ‘Send me a message tomorrow.’

  She watched him through a crack in the door as he jogged to his car, and once he pulled away from the kerb Miranda threw the bolt and rested her forehead against the door.

  Oh, hell.

  Chapter Four

  On Sunday, after putting Eddie down for his post-lunch nap, Miranda retreated to her bedroom and made herself a nest in the middle of the bed: bottle of water, bowl of dry Captain Crunch and her laptop.

  It had been a hell of a day chasing the little guy around. She’d had a decent amount of sleep, no less than what she was used to, but her body still ached a little from the rowdy ride she’d received from Simon. When she first found herself trying to catch Eddie to get him into his high chair for breakfast, she almost gave up, but the exercise had done her good. The movement had loosened her limbs and made the prospect of a long night with Simon more of a possibility than a fantasy.

  Letting her painfully slow computer boot up, she dragged the pillow close to her and buried her face into it. She’d washed the sheets but not the pillowcases, and she could still smell his cologne. One deep breath and she was right back in that churning, pounding place he’d taken her on Friday night when he’d been in her bed.

  The computer chimed. She typed in her unlock code and settled back against the pillow she had cuddled, munching on cereal as she looked down her bed.

  A virgin bed no more. She would have to tighten the bolts that kept the damn thing together if it had many more adventures. If the pine frame and slats could talk, they would beg for mercy and demand an explanation why, all of a sudden, they had been made to work so hard to stay together.

  Suck it up, she thought, her lips twisting into a smile. Her pussy had been off limits for so long that even if she hadn’t heard from Simon, she’d have no regrets.

  No, that’s not right, she thought with a deep breath as she sucked the sugar out of a cereal bit.

  He’d texted her that morning to confirm their date that night, and the bawdy memory of bringing a near-stranger into her bed shifted into something not quite out of the realm of the one-night stand,
but much cosier.

  Sometimes she found herself listening to her co-workers talk about their significant others, and loneliness would creep in. She had friends, good friends she could count on, but she had no one in particular she could snuggle down with in front of the television – or sneak out for an evening with at a cosy café.

  At 23, she should have more in her life than just going to work and taking care of the baby. She’d said the same thing in her head countless times in the last year, always with resignation because she knew that with every minute of her day accounted for it was unlikely. She’d tried online dating, but with only one night a week available there was no opportunity to make a connection.

  She tried not to develop expectations, but there was something about the way she and Simon had connected – all because she had missed the bus.

  Her old computer now relatively usable, Miranda opened her browser and got to the task that had brought her to her bedroom to begin with.

  In Google, she typed SIMON REEVE. This was her first opportunity to look him up since they met, and, as her stash of cereal vanished, she indulged in her research. She wasn’t lying when she told him she barely knew anything about the Connell Davis scandal. Her primary source of news was social media, but the majority of her connections were from either Juliet’s musical circle or her online community of artists, plus the local transit company. She’d seen a few articles shared online, but hadn’t paid them much attention beyond the initial thrill of scandal.

  Following the digital trail now, Miranda unearthed her lover’s infamy, beginning with the recent ugly story of the politician’s son who had gone from private-school soccer star to a major player in human trafficking.

  Shady character is right, at least according to the earlier articles. Article after article revealed Simon Reeve’s reckless adolescence and young adulthood and suggested that he had never severed his ties to the more questionable characters in his past. Some reports outright accused Simon of being in the thick of Connell Davis’s disgusting activities, but no evidence was ever found and police flatly denied that Simon had ever been under investigation.