He tastes like candy. Like sugar and fruit and childhood memories.
Hans groans and slides his tongue deeper into my mouth.
My mind is fuzzy with desire, but I still want more.
More contact. More skin. More Hans.
I slide my hands up his body, up his chest, over his bunching muscles, until I grip his shoulders.
Our teeth click together when we both open our mouths wider.
I must be dreaming.
I curl my fingers, letting my nails dig into his shirt, confirming this is real.
Hans rocks into me. His hard length digs into my belly, and I lift my leg, hooking my foot around the back of his thigh.
I don’t know what I’m trying to do. But whatever my body is thinking, his is thinking it too.
The hand on my hip slides around to my lower back. Then lower still.
He palms my ass, but he keeps sliding lower until his hand is between my legs, cupping my pussy from behind.
Right as I tilt my head back to suck in a breath, he lifts me. With one hand. And sets me on the back of the couch.
My legs automatically spread, and Hans steps forward to fill the space between us.
His hold on me is almost too much. The hand in my hair, and the one beneath me, between my legs.
“Who are the photos for?” Hans releases my hair and drags his hand down my neck.
I try to elongate my spine, try to stretch my body in a way that will force his hand to my chest.
“Cassandra,” he snaps this time.
“Me,” I admit on a tortured moan. “They were a birthday present for me.”
The fingers against my core flex. My thin shorts and panties are the only thing separating his touch from my entrance.
“Jesus,” I pant.
He shakes his head. “You use my name while I’m touching you.”
“S-sorry.” I can’t believe I just apologized for that.
The hand on my neck lowers until he’s squeezing my breast. “Who are the photos for?”
He pinches my nipple through the fabric as he flexes his other fingers again.
“You.” I claw at his shoulders and wiggle against the hand beneath me. “They’re for you.”
It’s not even a lie. Every time I’ve fantasized about a man since moving in, it’s been him. When the photographer told me to imagine someone I wanted to seduce, I pictured him.
“That’s a good girl.” Hans tugs on my nipple.
“Hans,” I cry, so close to coming.
I don’t want to be in this alone, but I’m not sure how to ask him to join me.
The look on my face must say it all.
Hans rumbles out a sound through his chest, then his mouth is back on mine.
This man has never said so much as a sentence to me before today. He’s a complete stranger to me. But if he pulled that thick dick out of his jeans right now, I’d let him fuck me raw atop this couch.
My neighbor uses the hand under me to hold me in place as he presses his hips harder against mine, grinding against me.
Our groans meld together as we both feel the press of his length against my core.
I tilt my hips, urging his dick to press harder against my clit.
His teeth scrape against my bottom lip, and my body tenses, preparing for release.
Oh god, I’m going to come in my shorts.
And I don’t care.
I tighten my legs around him, but then something vibrates against my inner thigh, where his pocket is.
Hans palms my other breast, its size filling his large hands, and I want him to pull on my nipple again.
His pocket vibrates a second time.
“Fuck.” He pulls his mouth from mine.
We stare at each other while we feel it vibrate a third time.
Texts. This man is getting texts while I’m having the most intensely sexual moment of my life.
CHAPTER 14
Hans
Cassandra Cantrell, the thirty-year-old beauty next door, is blinking up at me with her trusting amber eyes, her mouth red and puffy from my kiss, and her body vibrating like it’s ready to explode.
The girl who flutters through life, no regard for her own safety, is looking at me like she wants me to fuck her. Like she’d happily reenact any one of those photos, only this time with my dick buried inside her. One hole or another.
She’s watching me like she’s waiting for me to explain what’s happening. To explain why it feels like this between us.
She’s doing that, and I’m getting text messages. Which means someone needs to die tonight.
And because I have more deaths on my hands than bones in my body, I’m the man who’s going to do it.
Karmine’s words echo in my mind. The warning about bad actors closing in. And I know I have to leave.
“Hans?” Cassandra says my name, and I hate it.
Because I crave it.
I flex my fingers, taking in one last handful. “Lock your door.”
A question starts to form on her sweet lips, but I pull my hands free.
Free of her chest. Free of her heat.
Then I step away, breaking the last contact between us, forcing her legs to unwind from my waist.
Cassandra tips backward.
Her arms go wide, she lets out a little shriek, and then she hits the sitting part of the couch with a little bounce.
Before she can right herself, I shove my hand between the cushions, then stride out of the room and out of her house.
I don’t belong here.
CHAPTER 15
Cassie
Stunned, I lie motionless, the wrong way on the couch with my feet in the air.
Did he just drop me?
The front door opens and slams shut.
Did he just leave?
I scramble to get upright, then crawl to the arm of the couch nearest the window.
Hans is already striding across the street, his long legs cutting the distance in seconds.
His truck is parked in his driveway, and he stops next to the driver’s door.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket to check his messages. And I hate that I wonder if it’s a woman.
He puts the phone back in his pocket, then opens the truck door. Before he climbs in, I see him toss something into the cab.
Wait… was that my book?
Still watching out the window, I stick my arm behind the back cushion, trying to find the Lust Shots book I saw him tuck there.
But I can’t find it, because he definitely took it.
Hans, my neighbor, stealer of breath and nudie books, pulls out of his driveway.
I sink back onto my butt.
What the hell just happened?
CHAPTER 16
Hans
I slam the heel of my boot against the metal door.
The shitty lock crunches with the single hit, and the door swings open.
Bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling illuminate the four men as they jump up from the thin, soiled cots they were lounging on.
The room is square. Two cots against the two side walls.
Two men to my left. Two to my right.
“Who the—”
The world will never know exactly what that guy was going to ask, because the blade of my first throwing knife sinks hilt deep under his chin, in the center of his throat.
He crumples back onto the cot.