After Hours (InterMix)

chapter Nine


“Get up.”

Another hot jolt, chased by a shiver of fear.

I fumbled from Kelly’s lap, his wet cock sliding between my cheeks and embarrassing me. When I made it to my feet and turned, he was up and shedding his shorts, and finally I got to see him. All of him.

His cock looked just as it felt: big and thick and intimidating, heavy with need, a force not to be defied.

“On your knees.”

I did as I was told. The carpet was soft, as soft as the eyes staring down at me were hard.

“Get your shirt off.”

I peeled it away, put my fingers to the clasp of my bra. He nodded and I ditched that, too. I touched my waistband, but—

“Leave the skirt.”

He stood before me, cock hovering between us accusingly. He fisted the root. I wanted a photo of that very sight, the only pornography I’d need for the rest of my life.

I’d never done quite this—never gone down on a guy while he was standing. Felt like a new act entirely. All the power belonged to Kelly with his looming body, his ready cock, bossy hands, and whatever commands might fall next from his lips, dropping down, down, down from so high above me.

“You ready for a feast, sweetheart?” He gave himself a long, tight pull, not waiting for an answer. “You gonna suck my cock? Show me whether or not you deserve to come on this later?”

More strokes, quicker but still perfectly controlled. Already a drop glistened at his tip, growing fatter until it slipped down the cleft of his head. I could feel my own desire priming, mimicking his.

“Open your mouth, girl.”

I swallowed, then obeyed, shutting my eyes to temper the intensity of the moment. His finger or thumb traced my lower lip, followed by the unmistakable smooth skin of his crown. Just the smell of him made my thighs tremble, and the flavor of his sex matched it—earthy and dark. My flavor, too. The arousal I’d basted him in.

“Wider.”

I obeyed, and his first inch slipped between my lips.

“Taste yourself.” That most unexpected of erotic touches again, as he slid his fingers into my hair and made a fist. As welcome now as it had been rejected with that old boyfriend. Kelly’s hips flexed, giving me more. Already my jaw ached, but it was just gas on the blaze, a spice that brought out the nuances of what he was serving me.

“Suck.”

I wrapped his base in my hand, held his hip with the other. I wanted to run them over his hard stomach, his thighs and his ass, the swell of muscle cresting from his ribs to his hip bones, everywhere. But I was the sex object, not him.

“Suck. Me.” The fist in my hair tightened, forcing my mouth farther down his cock.

I shut my eyes and closed my lips around him. F*cking big. F*cking hard, and with my mouth full, I had no choice but to breathe him in—that potent, distinctly male smell with its millions of iterations, that scent that can kill an attraction dead or make you an addict for life. And I was hooked on Kelly, instantly. His smell was as right as his voice, as hot as his body. It hit me like a shot of liquor, and all I wanted was to get wasted.

He tasted like skin and salt and sex, sex, sex. Just right. I’d never felt this with a man, this blind, shameless need to simply have him inside me, in any way I could get him. To submit to his maleness, do his bidding, invite him to shed all civility and just be. Just be a man, in all his base, greedy, selfish glory, and let me wallow in it.

I strained to take in the body above me, that face and those eyes. Tense muscle, flushed skin, that hard expression with those beautiful clear irises.

“More.”

His voice made me shiver and the hand holding his hip twitched. I took everything I could, slowly, to keep from gagging.

“Yeah. Nice and deep . . .” He gathered my hair in both hands, nearly tender. “I should come right now. Make you drink me down, send you to bed hungry for trying my patience.” He stroked my cheek roughly with his thumb and the caress echoed through me, potent as fingertips on my *.

With his hips, he showed me the rhythm he craved. He went deeper than I wanted, triggering shallow gags and making my sinuses sting. His smell seemed sharper, the deed darker, and when the reflex tears began brewing, it became tougher to breathe. But wasn’t that just so right?

“Oh.” His hips bucked faintly with the moan. “I’ve got so much for you. So much. I wanna see it slip down your pretty chin when I fill that mouth up.”

His words made me reel, made my legs shake like some cliché. Do it, I begged him in my mind. Exactly what you said, you filthy f*cker.

“But not yet,” he whispered, shooting down the prayer I’d beamed. “Not yet.” And he eased my mouth from his cock with that nasty hand in my hair. Even as the air quenched me, I wanted him back inside, like my sanity depended on it.

“Stroke me. I wanna see my cock in your hand.”

I wrapped my fingers around him, squeezing gently. Uncertain what else he might like, I kept my other hand on his thigh.

After half a minute, he took over. “Like this.” He fisted himself, demonstrating long, tight, downward strokes, rougher than I’d dared. The other hand went to his balls, cupping first, then giving slow pulls. The latter he kept up, releasing his erection.

“Try again.”

I gripped his cock, mimicking what he’d shown me. On a whim, I added a second fist, stroking him from the base to the head, hand over hand over hand. His own hand froze in tandem with a grunt, telling me he approved.

“Better,” he muttered, and let his balls go, gathering up my hair once more. “Now suck.”

The salty tang of his excitement was strong with the first pass of my lips, fading as I found my pace.

“Yeah. You’re good. But I’ll make you even better. Keep going. Earn the f*cking I’m gonna give you tonight.”

I swallowed him deeper, back to the edge of choking, though it wasn’t as bad this time. I found a smoother way to take him, an angle that was easier on my gag reflex.

“Look at me.”

I did my best, straining to meet his eyes. So, so gently, he ran his knuckles over my cheek.

“That’s good.”

And then the fist holding my hair pulled me back, his cock slipping free and leaving me all at once disappointed and hungry and empty. Angry.

“I think it’s almost time,” Kelly said. “Don’t you?”

Without thought, I replied, “Whatever you say.”

He smirked at that, eyes narrowing. Then he left me kneeling there, striding out of the room, past the kitchen and down the hall. When he reappeared, he was sliding a condom down his cock, and my heart was racing in an instant. He tossed the wrapper on the counter, eyes locking with mine as he closed in. Fear chilled my skin and arousal heated my cunt, and I awaited his next order.

“All fours.”

The carpet had already begun to chafe my knees, but I dropped obediently to my palms. Kelly circled me, then stopped. No sound or movement for a long, long moment. I could feel his gaze on me, explicit as stroking fingers.

After an eternity, he knelt behind me. My skirt was flipped up over my back and those big hands held my waist, sliding down and along the outsides of my thighs then up the insides. One hand cupped my hip. He flattened the other palm, drawing the edges of his thumb and forefinger along my folds, making me yelp.

“Shhh.”

I shut my mouth, harsh breaths wheezing from my nose. It felt so good. So f*cking good. Then the pleasure sharpened, deepened, darkened as Kelly’s hand was gone, replaced with the hot, latex-smooth length of his erection.

“You made me wait so long,” he whispered, cock sliding forward and back along my lips, pelvis bumping my ass to punctuate each pump of his hips. “Now I get to take my time. Make you wait until I say you can come.”

I moaned from the friction and his voice, then froze as he angled himself, pushing inside. We gasped together, mine a noise of surprise, his smug and hungry. He met resistance after a couple of inches, the reality of his size hitting home with a pang. A groan slipped from my throat, immediately shushed.

Two hands grasped my sides. His hips adjusted. He slid out slowly, nearly leaving me empty, then slipped back inside, a little deeper than before. More than any sexual experience I’d had, this felt like a physical violation. Flesh rending flesh. An act of near violence.

Jesus, it felt incredible.

“You feel that?” Another inch drove inside. “Feel that cock? Feel what you do to me?”

“Yes.”

“Feel how f*cking hard you make me?”

I nodded, throat too tight to speak. He eased out then pushed deeper, deeper. His body felt strong and big behind me, a force I’d be hopeless to resist. I was a little bird in his huge paws, a goner. Devour me.

“You’re so warm,” he said, cock sliding out, excruciatingly slowly. He made me feel every inch, the sensation so intense I forgot to breathe. A head rush made me hazy, and I forced myself to inhale, exhale, to recall any needs my body had aside from submitting to Kelly’s pleasure.

“And so bad for making me wait.” A slap landed on my thigh, not quite a spank but unmistakably a punishment. I jolted from my trance. Another slow pump, another slap. It stung, hot on the heels of the first. I braced myself for a third, but he rubbed the spot instead, then clamped his hands tight to my waist, hips picking up speed.

“Yeah.” He sucked in a seething breath, let it out with a shudder. I craned my neck to see his face.

My stoic, composed guardian-orderly was gone. His mean eyes were at half-mast, cheeks and lips flushed, mouth slack. It heated me in a way the physical sensations couldn’t, tightening my body around his. Dangerous reactions, when I knew full well I wasn’t allowed to come.

“You like to watch?” Not waiting for an answer, he upped the showmanship—his thrusts slowed and deepened, the roll of his hips exaggerated, the clenched muscles of his chest startling. The rhythmic flex of his abdomen insane. A thousand bucks—I’d have happily paid it for a view of his ass.

“I’ll give you a real good look.” And all at once he pulled out, slapped my hip, and said, “Turn over.”

I flipped gracelessly onto my back, Kelly knocking my knees wide, grabbing my waist and jerking me hard so my p-ssy was pressed to the underside of his erection. Carpet burn stung my shoulder blades, but I couldn’t care. Not when he was holding his cock, angling it, sinking back inside me, deep.

I moaned.

“Shhh. Keep that pretty mouth shut and watch.” He clasped the meat of my upper thighs, holding me in place as he began to thrust. A deep, shuddering noise rumbled from him and he paused to adjust his angle, eyes shut, luxuriating. “F*ck, you feel good, girl.”

Don’t concentrate on the sensations. If you do, you’ll come. Then there’ll be trouble. Real trouble, no cheesy call-me-Daddy play spanking, not from Kelly f*cking Robak.

I let the sight mesmerize me, drawing a needed veil between my body and brain. His pace was slow and steady, thrusts assertive, their impact jolting through me.

How was this real? How was I having sex with this man? The dark hair between his legs kissed my lighter curls each time he pushed deep, chased by a view of his thick shaft, shining from me. More hair trickled from his chest down the gulley between his abdominal muscles, a faint trail. I imagined stroking it while he slept, finding out if it was as soft as it looked, as soft as on his forearms. My gaze darted to his face, and the stubble peppering his jaw—rough as sandpaper, my chin could attest. I wanted to crawl over his sleeping body and study him from close-up; record every line beside his eyes, every pore, every lash and freckle, the tiniest veins in his lids. The two little glistening pink notches at the inside corners of his eyes, too vulnerable a scrap of flesh for a man like this to even possess, and yet he did. And maybe he’d even shed tears from there, in some previous life. I studied every miniscule scrap of proof that he was human and committed it to memory.

What was before me now, this couldn’t be real. Not the way his hips and stomach flexed and clenched, not that tendon standing taut along his neck. Not that look on his face, a mix of stern and desperate that made me feel at once scared and invincible. This wasn’t any Kelly I knew, not even one I’d met in my fantasies.

“You like watching me f*ck?” His voice, though—that was unmistakable. This was real. “Yeah? Tell me.”

“Yes.”

He smacked my hip. “Tell me.”

“I like watching you f*ck.”

“Good. Eyes on my cock.”

I dropped my gaze where he wanted it. Where I didn’t want it, frankly. Because already, my resolve was destroyed, every slick push of his flesh honing my arousal sharper, hotter, meaner. I wasn’t allowed to come yet, but if I kept watching, I would. I didn’t need anything more—not a thumb on my *, not one more filthy syllable in that deep, dark voice. Just this view, and I’d be done for.

His lips were parted, lids heavy. This moment might not be about him and me, about two bodies unified in pleasure or anything profound, but goddamn he looked good. Looked exactly as he felt—strong and big and one hundred percent in control. And I felt exactly as he surely saw me, a hungry vessel, eager to please, at the mercy of his cock.

Another smack on my hip scared the pleasure away for a breath.

“Eyes on my cock,” he repeated, and I obeyed.

Those big hands kneaded my thighs as his hips sped. Hotter than the friction and impact and view were his sounds. Breaths coming faster, tiny grunts on the odd thrust. He released one of my legs, his palm spreading tingling heat over my skin as he stroked my hip, my side beneath the drape of my skirt, my belly. It settled on my mound, and with a sensation like whip striking, his thumb found my *.

I half sat up, sucking in a silent gasp. Kelly smirked, that elusive smile filling me with a different pleasure, one that tumbled around warmly between my ribs. Another stroke, and the affection was gone like smoke. He drew his length out, dipping two fingers inside me and slicking the wetness over my *. My legs jerked and I groaned.

“Hush.” He rubbed me, slow and unmistakably patronizing. His erection beat hot against my inner thigh. “You miss my cock?”

“Yeah.”

He clasped himself, angled his dick and drew it along my lips, over my *. I bucked, grasping his other wrist. Another sinister smile and a couple of swipes of his hard flesh, then he sank back inside.

“Now don’t you mistake yourself.” His slippery fingers pinched my *.

“Oh.”

“Shhh.” He circled the spot. “This isn’t permission. You don’t come ’til I tell you to. And I’m not telling you yet.”

But it was impossible. I might as well will my heart to stop beating. The entire world became his cock claiming my cunt, his fingers teasing my pleading *, the atmosphere built from his smell and voice and the sound of his skin on mine. This was a force of nature, a physical law. I was just as he wanted me—powerless. And he looked calm now, so calm.

The need mounted, a desperate ache growing harder, tauter, angrier—pounding, white-hot heat. With every glance of his fingertips, every plunge of his flesh into mine, another push toward the ledge.

No. No no no no no. But my body was begging, shrieking for relief. It had to show on my face.

“Don’t you do it,” Kelly warned, cock drilling, cruel fingers stroking light as a whisper, hot as a bonfire. Daring me or forcing me. And it was his voice that did it. Five little words and I was gone. “Don’t you f*cking do it.”

The world shrank to a pinpoint, made of nothing but the friction between us, and Kelly’s weight, his smell, the sound of his harsh breaths and the brutal length of his cock. The pleasure burst against his fingers, spilling out warmth and pure sensation, a wave of relief dragged back and chased by pleasure-pain. Too much, but he didn’t stop, even as I grasped his wrist, begging. I shut my eyes, ground my head into the carpet. Stop. Please.

But he kept stroking with his cock and his fingers, stroked me until the pain was shed, more pleasure hiding beneath. Scary pleasure, mean and violent. My hold on his wrist faltered, trembling as he forced me toward a second orgasm, a screaming, furious thing.

“Oh God.”

“Shut that mouth,” Kelly said, and it was the last thing I was aware of. I came like a bolt, fast and blinding.

His fingers showed mercy this time. He left me shaking against the carpet, wrung out and twitchy. I could hear myself. Wheezing breaths, primal groans. I sounded frightened. And maybe I ought to be.

As my muscles unclenched, Kelly went dead-still. Gray eyes stared down from impossible heights and he closed his hands around my hip bones.

“You defy my orders, you pay the price.”

His cock was gone. It was punishment in itself, leaving me deprived.

“Turn over. On your elbows.”

I fumbled back to all fours and lowered to my forearms, the steep position feeling unnerving and degrading. I couldn’t turn and see him, and my butt was just . . . there. My skirt slipped farther up my waist. Every point of contact I’d had with Kelly was taken away, and whatever he had planned, I couldn’t see it or feel it.

The slightest huff of an inhalation, then—

SMACK.

I gasped, cheek burning as though he’d pressed an iron to my ass. I couldn’t get a breath in. Nothing like before, during the sex—

SMACK.

The other side, just as sharp. My shoulders and arms shook and tears pooled in my eyes.

Spatula. I could say it. I should say it. I couldn’t take another—

SMACK. Same as the first side, a searing sting like the f*cking Devil had branded me. The other cheek tingled, pain fading.

Say it. Say the stupid safe word. But I didn’t.

Not that I couldn’t. I simply didn’t. Somehow, I chose not to. I wanted to feel what lay beyond the pain.

The next smack brought the fire, but no fresh panic. It felt like . . . It felt like every ounce of Kelly’s brutal body, his strength, concentrated to a laser focus. A force I could never replicate. I was too small, too female, too timid—

SMACK.

“Oh f*ck.”

“One more, for talking.”

A final burning slap rang against my ass, then he began to rub. With both hands, a rough massage to start but softening steadily, until it was just the faintest graze of his palms over my fevered skin.

His hands moved to my waist, grabbing my skirt’s stretchy waistband and yanking it over my hips and down my thighs. As he stood I rose to my hands, watching him. His throat and chest were flushed pink, racing breaths given away by the flex of his belly and the swell of his ribs.

“Get up.”

I was barely on my feet when he hooked an arm behind my knees. My skirt slipped from my toes, fluttering to the floor. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been carried, but he did so as easily as he might a child, around the corner and down the hall, into his room. He laid me across the bed and flipped the blinds closed. I propped myself up on my elbows, and for half a minute or more he stood at the bedside, studying me with darting eyes.

His covers felt cold under my burning butt and rasped shoulders, but that stare didn’t promise any respite. Neither did his cock, looking as hard as it had felt, claiming my body on the floor. He wrapped it in his fist, and my mouth dropped open.

Since he’d told me what he had, outside the bar, about touching himself, thinking about me . . . I’d gotten myself off fantasizing about it, a half dozen times or more. Now here it was, live and in person. More explicit and real somehow, even with the condom veiling my view, electric with dimension and smell and the intimidation of knowing he wasn’t done with me. That I was staring at a cocked weapon, and I had bull’s-eyes stenciled all over my body.

His pulls were slow. Pensive, as though he were perusing a menu.

“You look good on that bed,” he finally said. “Just like I imagined.” He sounded softer now. Not tender, but my misgiving ebbed as I held his gaze. He approached and my heartbeat sped, but it was excitement pulsing through my veins, not anxiety.

“Open your legs.”

My arousal flashed at the way he said it. Brusque and bossy, sure, but his voice was tight, giving him away. I spread. He wedged his knees beneath my thighs, driving them wider. I gasped at the contact, hard, hot muscle burning against the skin his palm had savaged.

He held my waist as he guided himself back to my entrance, his cock feeling almost cool against my swollen lips. With a long, deep push, he was all the way inside, so smooth we could have been doing this together for years. He braced his hands at my sides, and I counted the throbs of his arousal like a countdown clock, like a metronome setting the rhythm of what was still to come.

“You feel me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How do I feel?”

“Big. And thick. Hard.”

He began to move—deliberate motions designed to corroborate what I’d said. “Biggest you’ve had?”

I nodded.

“Tell me.”

“You’re the biggest I’ve had.”

“So big it’s like you never got f*cked before now.”

His tone said it wasn’t a question, so I held my tongue and got lost in the motions of his body. Everything male and strong, owning me. Scary and comforting, needy and protective, all at once. Unsure if I was allowed, I reached up slowly, and he let me stroke his arms. His skin was more tan than mine, and stained with bruises. My hands looked so small and pale, like they belonged to a delicate, make-believe creature. These are the arms that keep me safe, at work, I thought. And turn me into a victim once I’ve stepped across Kelly’s threshold.

His thrusts grew deeper, a bit faster. The flex of his hips and abdominal muscles were hypnotizing, like everything I’d ever wished pornography could be. So hot I’d give up a week’s wages for a copy of this tape. Since I couldn’t, I’d just have to record the moment.

“You like to watch,” he muttered, voice heavy and thick. “You wanna watch when I come?”

The second he asked, I knew my answer. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, you wanna see. Wanna see what you do to me.”

I nearly smirked, so surprised—what I did to him. This man no one got the better of, ever. Who’d seduced me with a guerilla campaign and lured me to this very encounter against every scrap of my better judgment. What I’d done to him. Even flat on my back, the notion made me feel seven feet tall.

“Yeah, Kelly. Let me see.”

He leaned back, drawing all the shadows away and giving me the perfect view of his body. His gaze had dropped between us to the point of penetration.

“You’re so f*cking wet.” A flurry of hard thrusts caught me off guard, then he slowed again. “So wet. So f*cking tight.”

That one made me squirm, but only for a second. I’d always shied at that term, thinking it was somehow degrading, some virginity-exalting male fixation. But f*ck it, I did feel tight. From his size, and my own pleasure. I was swollen and lush, and yeah, tight. I’d had it all twisted. A tight p-ssy wasn’t about replicating innocence. It was about a man feeling desired. And I wouldn’t begrudge Kelly a truth as deep as that one.

He let me touch him however I wanted, and I ran my palms up his stomach and chest, down his sides, and over his hips and ass. I drank it all in, knowing this could very well prove the most extraordinary sexual experience of my life, and might be one of the few and final times I got to be with him. Or let myself be with him.

“You like the way I f*ck,” he growled, the tell me implicit in his eyes.

“I love how you f*ck.”

A cruel smile, and he dropped back down, looming. I squeezed the hard swells of his shoulders then held his hips. His breathing had changed. It was short and high in his chest, speeding alongside his cock. His face looked harsh but the control was bleeding out of him, eyes unfocused. If ever I had a chance to steal a scrap of his power, this was it.

“You gonna come for me, Kelly?”

He answered with a throaty, “Oh,” and I knew I had him.

“Show me.”

“I will. I’ll let you see. Let you see what I’ve imagined, every f*cking time I’ve shot in my hand, thinking about you.”

Just like that, he stole back the reins, left me wordless and hazy, all my blood throbbing around his cock and not a single thought in my skull.

“I’ll show you,” he promised, and trailed off. Pleasure had the better of him. It drove his racing strokes, escaping his lips in heavy grunts.

I could see it—the exact moment we reached his point of no return. Eyes narrowed to slits, lips flushed, face mean, so mean. I grabbed his punishing hips just to feel the muscles working, and locked my gaze on his driving cock.

He didn’t even make me beg.

He went dead-silent, face strained through a dozen fierce, sloppy thrusts. Then all at once he jerked out, stripped the condom with a snap, and pumped himself in a rough fist. His moan was soundless, lips round. With one arm braced beside my shoulder, he pressed his crown to my belly on the first spurt, hot come lashing my skin. Again, again, until his hand slowed. A single bead of sweat slipped down his cheek and chin, hitting my collarbone like a raindrop.

Bleed on me, I thought, holding his sides, feeling his ribs swell and contract. Let me drown in your sweat and blood and come and every other filthy thing that makes you this way.

I took a deep, hitching breath and stroked his sweat-damp hair, suppressing my urge to kiss him madly. Maybe he’d have welcomed it, but I didn’t like the way I felt. I wanted to kiss like this was love, like we’d just f*cked to celebrate his proposing to me. I was smart enough to keep the boundary between attraction and affection delineated, and save those kisses for a man who’d recognize them for what they were.

Music drifted from the living room, rising and falling on a loop, the menu screen of the movie.

When the agility returned to his limbs, Kelly moved to the edge of the mattress and procured a hand towel from the side table drawer. He tidied me with stoic sweeps, sleepiness already dulling his gaze. We settled on our sides, my back hugged tight to Kelly’s front, both of us sweaty and ripe and spent. His palm rested on my ribs, once possessive, now feeling heavy and lazy, even fond.

“So,” he said at length, lips against my neck.

“Yes?”

“You feel exploited or spoiled?”

“A bit of both.”

He made a cocky noise. “Good enough.”

I reached back to pat his hair, my dangerous predator pacified for now. “You were right. There was something in it for me.”

He pressed his half-stiff cock to my butt, but he was wrong. Nice as that was, Kelly had been the treat. Kelly with his callous words and voice and fists, all that mastery dressed up as sadism.

He was the best lover I’d ever had. So far ahead of the competition, I couldn’t even recall their names or faces. When I’d amuse myself on quiet nights with memories of this affair, I’d think of his cock, sure. But more than that, it’d be those bossy hands and leveling eyes. It’d be Kelly, possessing me. Using me. And yeah, spoiling me rotten. I’d slept with the enemy, and f*ck . . . Who knew a chauvinist would make such an incredible lay?

“You sticking around for day two?” he asked.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really. But you could probably make a run for it now, while I’m incapacitated.”

I laughed. “I think I’ll stay right here.” Right here, where everything felt surprisingly simple. Where my worries faded to abstract concepts. Where our Saturday shift felt weeks away, and life was no more complicated than the needs of our naked bodies, the world no wider than his bed.

“I’m curious to see what round two will look like.”

“It’ll look like whatever I want it to,” Kelly said, but a yawn sucked all the ominousness from his words.

“Don’t fall asleep. You promised me dinner.”

I wound up regretting the comment; a minute later Kelly dragged himself from the bed, putting an end to the cuddling I was secretly enjoying.

And there he was. Kelly, just Kelly. Just a naked man rendered docile by his release, muscles beautiful but stripped of all threats. In that instant, those once-intimidating bruises made him seem heartbreakingly fragile.

I watched him pull on a fresh pair of shorts, his eyes catching mine as he straightened the waistband.

“Yeah?”

“Just looking at you. While you’re still tranquilized.”

That earned me a grin. “How do you like your steak?”

“Medium.”

Kelly nodded, heavy lids blocking all the coldness from his stare. “Whatever you say.”