Chapter 543 | Breach of Contract

Chapter 543: 543 | Breach of Contract

She grabbed my face with both hands and hauled me up to eye level. Her mascara had given up completely and run in two dark tracks down her cheeks, and her blue hair hung plastered to her neck. She looked wrecked and beautiful and furious about both.

"Take off my panties," she ordered. "Then turn me around, and don’t make me ask twice, because I asked twice on the porch at the farmhouse and I’m still mad about it."

"You said please on that porch."

"I remember what I said, and I’m choosing to hold it against you forever." ℴ

I hooked my thumbs into the lace and dragged it down her thighs. She stepped out of it and kicked it into the corner of the stall like it had personally offended her. Then she turned and braced both hands on the plastic wall, and she arched her back and looked at me over her shoulder with her lower lip caught between her teeth.

The graft practically sang behind my ribs. My brain filed a formal complaint about blood supply and got overruled by every other part of me.

I stepped up behind her and grabbed her hips. Her skin was slippery from the water, so I dug my fingers in harder, and she moaned at the pressure before I had done anything else. I dragged the head of my cock along her slit, slow, once and then again, and she pushed back against me with a noise that sounded like a threat.

"If you tease me right now, I’m telling everyone in the group chat that you cried at Chapter thirty-seven."

"Hikaru told you about that?"

"Hikaru tells me nothing. You just confirmed it."

I pushed inside her before she could gloat, and her gloating turned into a long, low groan that shook down her whole spine. She was tight and hot around me, and she clenched hard as she took the last inch. For a second neither of us moved. The water drummed on my back and her breath shuddered out against the wall.

"God, you’re big," she whispered, "and I hate that I say that every time."

"You can say it more if you want. I’ll allow it."

"I’m going to kill you in your sleep, Monroe."

"You’ll have to stay the night to do that."

She went quiet after that, and her shoulders tensed, and I realized what I’d said a second too late. Belle doesn’t stay. Belle leaves before sunrise with her shoes in her hand and a lie about an early study group. Except for the night in Oakdale, and the night after the farmhouse, and the three nights she spent sleeping in a hospital chair watching my heart monitor.

She pushed back against me hard, grinding her ass into my hips.

"Move," she said, and her voice cracked in the middle. "Move before I say something stupid."

I moved. I pulled almost all the way out and drove back in, and the stall shook, and the plastic wall creaked under her palms. I found a pace that made her gasp on every stroke, long and deep, and I reached around her waist and cupped her breast again. Milk spilled over my fingers and the graft drank it through my palm, straight into the Vault. The counter climbed past five cups.

"Harder," she demanded. "You drank my bottle in front of everyone, so I get to walk funny on the ferry."

"Belle, the entire squad is going to know."

"The entire squad already knows. Jordan made a bet with Javier about how long we’d take."

"What did Jordan bet?"

"He bet twelve minutes, and I intend to make him lose so badly he cries."

That was the most motivating thing anyone had ever said to me. I grabbed her hip with my free hand and gave her exactly what she asked for. The slap of wet skin filled the stall, and Belle stopped making words entirely. Her hand slid down between her own legs and rubbed her clit in fast little circles, and she pushed back into every thrust.

I stacked Sensory Hijack on touch and doubled every point where my body met hers. Her knees buckled. I caught her around the waist and held her up, and she clawed at the wall and sobbed my first name, over and over, until the second orgasm tore through her. She clamped down on me so hard my vision went white at the edges, and milk sprayed across the plastic wall in two bright arcs.

"That’s two," I told her, and my voice came out rough.

"Stop counting," she panted. "Stop counting and finish, and finish inside me, or I’m calling it a breach of contract."

"We have a contract now?"

"We’ve always had a contract. You just never read the fine print."

I pulled her upright against my chest and wrapped one arm across her stomach. She turned her head, and I kissed her, sloppy and deep, tasting butterscotch and salt on both our tongues. My other hand went back to her clit. I rolled my hips into her slow and hard, and I let Euphoric Feedback climb to eight, and she shook in my arms like she was going to break apart.

"I was scared," she said into my mouth. "I was so scared when you went up there."

"I know you were."

"You don’t know anything. You just jump off things and assume someone’s going to catch you."

"Someone always does, Belle."

"That’s not a plan, Jace. That’s a personality disorder."

She came a third time with my name in her mouth and my hand crushed between her thighs. I buried myself deep and came with her, and the graft slammed against my ribs so hard I felt it in my teeth. The amber ring in my skull flared bright, and gold text scrolled across my vision faster than I could read it.

We stayed there under the water, breathing hard, with her back pressed to my chest and my arm locked around her. The spray started to cool at the edges. Belle reached up without looking and turned the handle further left, keeping it hot.

When the notification finally settled, I read it twice. The Vault showed seven cups. My lifespan counter had jumped by two full days, and the session bonus from the quest multiplier was still active, which meant the old man in the library had just watched me convert shower sex into life insurance at a premium rate. Somewhere in a library that doesn’t exist, a bearded pervert was probably taking notes.

"How many cups?" Belle asked.

"We’re at seven now."

She did the math in her head. I felt her do it, because her whole body relaxed against me like someone had cut the strings.

"Good," she said. "That’s good, and now you owe me dinner."

"I thought the interest covered it."

"The interest covered the bottle. Dinner covers the emotional damages from watching you ride a sea monster."

"Is there a tax on the tax?"

"There’s always a tax, Jace, and I’m the one who sets the rate."