Trade Me (Cyclone #1)

“You know the truth,” I say. “We’re not dangerous, not to each other.”


She lets out a breath. “Not for the next two weeks and eight hours.”

And then we’re kissing again, lips melting into each other in the dark, hands fumbling with clothing. I pull her shirt over her head. Her bra follows next. I take one of her nipples in my mouth, nibbling on it, licking. Feeling her whole body flush with warm pleasure. She lets out little gasps.

She lets me undo her jeans, and then takes my hands in hers and guides them between her legs.

Touching her, sliding my fingers through her folds in the dark, discovering the slick feel of her desire, is everything. She lets me slip a finger inside her, lets me feel the heat of her clamped around me. Then she takes my other hand and shows me where to touch her—right there, lightly brushing that hard bundle of nerves. She shows me how to make her breath catch, how to make her body writhe, how to make her throw her head back.

She shows me all the ways she’s vulnerable to me.

There’s a condom in my wallet. I tilt the face into the moonlight spilling through the windows, long enough to check the date briefly—it’s still good—before handing it over to her.

She opens the packet and then slowly unrolls it down my length. Her fingers are warm against me, so good.

“I want you so much,” I say.

She looks up at me. “Come and have me.”

I pull her onto the bed with me and kiss her. She’s naked against my skin; her body presses against mine. She undoes the last buttons of my shirt, pulling it off, and then there’s nothing between us at all. Nothing but the heat of her breath—and then, as I take her mouth with mine, nothing at all. We’re skin to skin, our bodies pressed together. She wraps a leg around me, exposing her core.

She’s wet, so fucking wet. And after all this time, it’s easy, so easy, to adjust myself, to slide into her inch by heated inch. To claim her body as her hands drift to my chest.

She does something with her muscles, squeezing my cock, and I let out a breath.

And then I do what she showed me—finding that rhythm of my body, that spot she responded to. I want her to know that everything she gives me, everything we have… I’ll never use it to hurt her.

I try to take it slow. But when I get it right, the response is electric. There’s this one angle—I hit it, and she lets her breath out. Her body tenses around mine and her hips rise.

“There,” she says. “That’s it.” And we’re both lost in the slide of flesh, the give and take. The harder I go, the more she responds, until she’s gasping, until I can hardly breathe, either. Until we’re both nothing but flames. Her body clenches hard around mine. She lets out a little noise and then a longer moan. I let everything go—every worry, every unfulfilled lust, every last desire. I come hard, pumping into her, and she holds me.

“You have a tattoo,” I say to her.

Half an hour later, after a little clean up, we’re still naked. We’re still touching each other because I can’t get enough of the feel of her. We’re still kissing, long and slow. We’re just recharging temporarily.

And she does have a tattoo—a little molecule on her left ankle.

“I got it a year ago,” she says. “Maria and I have matching tattoos. We got them after we got through Organic together.”

Funny that there’s still so much I don’t know about her. Funny that I want to know it all, to fit it into one night together. Funny that we’re not talking about the things that matter, even though we are.

“Is Maria premed too? I didn’t realize that.”

“Nope. She tapped out after Organic. She said it was too much boring memorization for her. So she decided to be an actuary instead.”

“Words that have never before been spoken: ‘Organic chemistry is too boring; let’s become actuaries.’”

Tina touches my shoulder and lets her hand fall down my arm. “So what about yours? When did you get it?”

“When I was eighteen.” I turn my arm to show her. “If you pop open a first generation Cyclone Tempest and take out the shielding plate, this is what you’ll find. Magnified by about a thousand percent. It was the first product I really worked on.”

“So you designed this?” Her fingers trace the circuitry.

“Nope. My input is higher level than circuit design. But I got this to remind myself that wherever I go, whatever I do, Cyclone will always be under my skin.”

My voice falls. I’m not sure how to go forward from here. I’m not sure how to face what comes after these two weeks. Cyclone is in me—but knowing I have to go back makes me feel restless even now.

She must feel my body tense beside her, must know the direction of my thoughts.

“Blake. Just because we’re not talking about how fucked up this is doesn’t mean it’s not fucked up.”

“I know.”