Too Late

I lift up on my elbows and look down at her. “If you knew how to fucking do it right,” I say. I stand up and scoot her a few inches across the floor and brace my hands against the wall. I close my eyes and imagine she’s Sloan kneeling in front of me instead. Except I imagine she’s crying, begging me to keep her. Pleading for me to save her again, just like I had to do the last time she did something this stupid.

The thought of Sloan is all it takes. I grab Jess by the hair and shove my dick in her mouth. I keep one hand braced against the wall and the other hand tangled in her hair while she does her job.

Who in their right mind would take Sloan to a restaurant, knowing she belongs to me? To Asa Jackson? Whoever he is, if he knew the things I could do to him—he never would have done it. No one has that kind of death wish.

“Fuck,” I say, irritated at the way the rubber gets in the way of feeling her tongue. I pull out of her mouth and rip the condom off.

“Oh, God,” I groan when her tongue greets me skin to skin. “That’s more like it.”

I pump into her mouth a few times while she twists her hand around my dick. She’s good, but I know she can do better.

“Take it all,” I say, moving her hand away. I wrap my hands in the back of her hair and press myself into her mouth until I can feel the back of her throat. The gagging sound she makes every time I push a little farther into her makes me explode within seconds. I grip the back of her head with both hands while she struggles to pull away, but I hold her head firmly in place until I’m finished. She’s clawing at my thighs, trying to pull away so she can breathe. I finally release her head and watch as she falls to her hands on the floor, coughing and gasping for breath.

I pull my pants up and button them. “Tell Jon thanks for sharing,” I say to her. “Your boyfriend is a hell of a lot more generous than I am.”

She wipes her mouth and stands up.

“Fucking bastard,” she says. She slams the door on her way out.

“Fucking whore,” I mutter.





When I go downstairs, Jon is seated at the bar with Dalton and Carter. I grab a beer out of the fridge and take a seat with them.

“You didn’t tell me she could deep throat,” I say to Jon, twisting the top off the beer. “Lucky bastard.”

Jon glares at me, leaning back in his chair. “I didn’t know she could.”

I laugh. “Well, I don’t think she knew she could either until about five minutes ago.”

Jon sighs and shakes his head. “God dammit, Asa. I told you to go easy on her.”

I laugh and take a sip, then set the beer back on the table. “The only girl I go easy on is Sloan.”

Carter lifts his beer to his lips, eyeing me while he tilts his head back and gulps. This kid has a major staring problem.

“Speaking of Sloan,” Jon says, pulling my attention back to his. “When will you return the favor?” He laughs and takes a swig of beer.

The jackass is laughing? He thinks he made a fucking joke? I pull my leg back and kick his chair as hard as I can, sending him and his beer backwards onto the ceramic tile. I stand up and look down at him, my hands clenched in fists.

“Sloan’s not a fucking whore!” I yell.

Jon pulls himself up off the floor, then proceeds to bow up to me like the idiot that he is. “She’s not? Guess you found out why she was on Ricker today. She wasn’t off fucking some guy like you thought?”

I lunge forward and punch him in his goddamned filthy mouth. He falls to the floor and I kick him in the ribs. I drop to my knees and try to punch him again, but Dalton and Carter are pulling me off of him before I have the chance. He scoots away from me and wipes at his bloody mouth. He looks down at his hand and back up at me.

“Fucking bastard,” he says.

“Funny. That’s the same thing your girlfriend called me when I pulled my dick out of her throat.”

Jon scrambles to his feet and lunges forward again, so I step into his swing, allowing him to square me in the jaw. Carter steps between us, pushing him back against the fridge while Dalton tightens his grip on my arms.

“Go upstairs!” Carter says to him. “Go check on Jess and calm the fuck down.”

Jon nods and Carter releases him. Dalton doesn’t let go of me until Jon clears the stairs.

I push my hand against my jaw and pop my neck. “I’ll be out back. Let me know as soon as Sloan gets here.”





Asa walks out the back door and I grip the back of my neck and squeeze.

“Shit!”

“I know,” Dalton says, not having any clue as to what’s actually going through my mind at the moment.

“I need to make a phone call,” I tell him. “Wait in here and make sure they don’t get into it again.” I walk out the front door and head straight to my car. I pull my phone from my pocket and scroll through the numbers, checking for Sloan’s. Dalton said he entered everyone’s number who lives here into my phone once I was assigned this job. I scroll through the S’s but don’t see her name. Just as I’m about to throw my phone out of frustration, the contact Asa’s girl catches my eye. I press it. I press it over and over, willing it to dial faster.

I hold the phone to my ear and listen as it rings. On the fourth ring, she finally picks up.

“Hello?”

“Sloan!” I say her name desperately.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Lu...Carter. It’s Carter.”

She sighs heavily into the phone.

“No, don’t hang up,” I say, hoping she holds on long enough to hear I’m not just calling her to apologize again. “He knows. He knows you went to lunch today on Ricker Road.”

She doesn’t say anything for several quiet seconds.

“You told him?” she asks, her voice full of hurt.

“No. No, I would never...I heard Jon say something about finding out who you were with at lunch. He doesn’t know it was me.”

I glance behind me, making sure I’m still in the clear. Dalton is standing at the window watching me.

“But...how could he know?” she asks, fear in her voice.

“Maybe he tracks your phone,” I say. “Where are you?”

“I just left the gym. I’m five minutes away. Carter, what do I do? He’ll kill me.”

The fear in her voice makes me regret every second of today. I should have never put her in this situation.

“Listen to me. The box of pizza is still in my back seat. I’ll keep him occupied out back. When you get here, grab the pizza and bring it to the backyard. Act like you have nothing to hide. Tell him you were hungry so you went out to a restaurant for lunch and bought a pizza and then offer us some. If you bring it up first, you should be fine.”

“Okay,” she says, breathing heavily. “Okay.”

“Okay,” I say back.

Several silent seconds pass and my pulse slowly begins to regulate.

“Sloan?”

“Yeah?” she whispers.

“I won’t let him hurt you.”

She’s quiet for a moment. I hear her sigh, then the call is dropped. I look down at my phone and take a deep breath, then head inside.

“Who was that?” Dalton asks, eyeing me curiously when I walk back through the door. “Hottie from Spanish?”

I nod. “Yep. I’m going out back. You want to help me calm Asa down?”

Dalton falls into step behind me. “Looks like you’re the one who needs calming down,” he says.

I swing open the door and Asa is seated on a lounge chair by the pool, drumming his fingers on his knees. I take a seat next to him and kick my feet back, attempting to appear as relaxed as my nerves will allow me. I don’t care if he finds out it was me who was with her at lunch. I don’t care if he follows through with his threat. All I care about is that he doesn’t lay another finger on Sloan.

Dalton and I keep Asa occupied with talk about an upcoming deal he wants to make. A while later, we hear Sloan pull into the driveway. I can see Asa tense up and he clamps his mouth shut mid-sentence. He starts to pull himself up, I assume to go meet her in the front yard. I do whatever it takes to distract him.

“So, this Jess chick?” I say.

He turns toward me. “What about her?”

“Just curious. Can she really deep throat?” Even just having to pretend I’m interested makes me feel like an asshole.

Asa smiles and opens his mouth to respond when the back door swings open. Sloan walks outside with a pizza box in her hand. I can feel the anger seeping off of Asa as his hands ball into fists.

“Hey, guys,” she says, sauntering toward us. “Anyone hungry? I have leftovers.” She holds out the pizza box and keeps the smile plastered on her face.

Dalton jumps up and meets her, grabbing the box out of her hands. “Hell yeah,” he says, taking a slice. He hands the box to me, so I grab one, too. I hand the box to Asa just as Sloan takes a seat on the lawn chair with him. She leans in to kiss him, but he pulls back.

“Where’d you get this?” he asks, closing the lid to read the top of it. She shrugs, careful not to look at me at all. “Some Italian place. One of my classes was cancelled today and I was hungry, so I grabbed lunch.”

“Alone?” he asks, setting the box on the concrete next to him.

She smiles. “Yeah. I’m so tired of campus food.” She reaches down to the box and grabs a slice. “Taste it,” she says, handing it to him. “It’s really good. I brought it home so you could try it.”

Asa grabs the slice of pizza out of her hands and drops it back onto the box. He leans forward and grabs Sloan by the hand, pulling her to him.

“Come here,” he says, pulling her onto his lap and grabbing the back of her head to kiss her.