She Leads the Guard Protecting Her

“Good boy.” Her breath hits the top of my head. Hot through my hair. Wet on my scalp. “Right there. You take it so well.”

I snarl into the cloth. Feet planted on the tile. Bent at the waist. Spine bowed. The counter edge hooks under my ribs and holds me there, stone grinding bone, and I let it. The ache is the leash. Her thighs lock my skull. I do not chase. I do the step.

Mouth. Slow. Cloth only. First mark. My tongue finds the seam of her pants and drags it. Somewhere under the drag there is a dark hall and a blade and my hands too stupid to find it. Mindless gets her killed. So I stay on the mark. I mouth her through the seam and I do not tear.

First lick. Dry. The cotton grain catches on my tongue like a cat’s. Rough. Warm under it. Kimiko shakes. Her heel skids off the cabinet door. I catch the ankle. Grip it. Hold. Her calf jumps in my fist.

Second lick. Slower. The seam goes damp under me. I feel it change. Dry thread, then thread that drags, then thread that gives. A dark line spreads out from my mouth. Salt. Heat. Her. I breathe it in like an animal at a fence. Spit runs off my chin. Hers and mine. It drops off my jaw and I hear it hit the tile between my boots. Small sound. I clock it the way I clock everything. Then I lose it under her.

She fists my hair. Pulls. Not away. Down.

“So good,” she whispers down at me. Her voice cracks in the middle. “Look at you. You don’t miss a thing. You don’t even rush it. God, you don’t rush.”

The praise hits harder than her hands. My cock kicks against my zipper. I grit my teeth into her. Do not rut the cabinet. Do not climb. Step one is not done.

Third lick. Flat tongue. Long drag. Meaner. The cloth is wet enough now that it bunches under my lip, folds on itself, and through the fold I feel the swell of her. Soft. Fat with blood. I put my mouth back where the drill says. Pressure. Stop. Again. Her hips jerk. I let the ankle go and pin them with my forearms. The stone under her ass has gone warm. I can feel it through her. She is small against the counter and she still fights me for an inch. My back screams in the bow. I stay bowed. I like the fight. I hate that I like it. Liking gets her dead.

Hall is quiet. I listen under her sounds. Vent. Fridge tick. My own blood. No boots. No metal. Good. I can stay one more breath.

Fourth lick is not a lick. I suck. I pull the wet cloth into my mouth until it molds to her and I hold it there and she cries out and her thighs slam shut on my ears. Pressure. Then they open. Then shut. Her legs do not know what they want. I know. I keep sucking. I still hear the room through the meat of her thighs. I make myself hear it. Drill. Drill. Drill.

“Kaelen.” My name breaks on her teeth. Then she folds over me. Her chest hits the back of my skull. Her mouth lands on my hair and the praise comes out of her filthy and low. “You eat me so good. Even like this. Even through it. Fuck. The way you press. Like your mouth was made for it. Stay. Stay, good boy.”

My control slips a tooth. I groan into her. The sound is ugly. The counter edge bites deeper under my ribs because I have leaned in without meaning to.

Her fingers shake in my hair. “That’s it,” she says. “That’s it. You hold back so well. Nobody—” Her hips buck. I pin them. “Nobody holds back like you. You’re so good at it. So good.”

Every word pulls the leash out of my fist. One finger at a time.

I stand. Too fast. I know it as my spine comes up. My hands go under her ass to take her off the stone and she comes faster than I planned. Her weight drops. All of it. Into my forearms. Her ass leaves the counter and she yelps and grabs my shoulders and her knee drives into my hip. My boot comes down on the drip I left on the tile. Spit on glaze. It goes. I go with it.

Half a second with nothing under me. No leverage. No floor. Her in my arms and the room tipping and the drill gone white. I twist. I take it on my back. The cabinet handle punches between my shoulder blades. Breath leaves me. The cabinet front stops me. I am wedged against it, knees bent, boots skidding until they bite, my whole weight hung on the handle in my spine. She lands on my chest. I keep her off the floor. I do not know how.

She is laughing. Gasping. Her mouth is on my jaw.

“You caught me.” She says it like a prayer and a dirty joke at once. “You always catch me. Even falling you—God. Good. So good. You didn’t let go. Not even then.”

That praise burns. It burns because I lost the floor and she thanked me for it. First break. I feel it like a tooth coming loose.

I shove off the cabinet with my shoulders. Get my knees under me. Get my feet under her. Two steps across the tile with her hanging off my front and my back lit up from the handle, and I do not trust my legs for a third.

I drop onto the low bench by the wall. Hard. The wood complains. I drag her with me because my hands will not open. She comes down straddling. Facing me. Knees wide on the bench. Chest to my chest. The landing is messy. Her forehead cracks my mouth. My lip splits on my own teeth. I taste blood and her sweat. She hisses. I grab her ass through the pants and seat her where the drill says. Facing. Friction. No skin. No push inside. Second mark. Count ten rolls. Then lift.

One.

She rolls her hips. The seam of her pants sits low on my cock, right at the base, and drags up. Dry at the edges. Wet in the middle where my mouth made it wet. The room goes out for a second. Comes back. Hall: vent. Nothing else.

“Fuck,” I grit. Not a word I meant. Then I fix it the only way the rule allows. “Good girl.”

Two.

She goes soft and vicious at once. Settles. Grinds harder. The seam rides up over my zipper and catches on the metal teeth and she feels it and does it again. “You fit so right,” she breathes against my split lip. “You feel so right under me. Say it again. You say it so well, say it again.”

“Good girl.” I bite the words into her jaw. “You take it. You take the grind.”

Three.

Wetter. I feel her soak through the second layer. The drag goes from dry pull to slick drag and my hips come up to meet it without my say. Hall: fridge tick. I clock it. I keep counting.

Four.

She whimpers. The sound hits the back of my teeth. I thrust up. Cloth on cloth. Mean. The seam slides sideways off my cock and she chases it back on. “There,” she pants. “There. That’s it. You find it every time. Look how you find it.”

Five.

I want to rip the zipper. I do not. Last line I can still call duty. If I get inside her I will not hear a door open. I know this. I know it and my hips still chase. The bench creaks under us. Hall: nothing. Vent.

Six.

Her hands find my face. She makes me look. Eyes blown. Mouth red. Blood from my lip smeared on her chin. Praise pours out of her like she is trying to kill me with it. “Good boy. Strong boy. You hold me so right. You’re not even in me and I can’t— fuck— you don’t drop me. You never drop me. Look how steady you are.”

My hands bruise her hips through the cloth. I feel the bone under my thumbs. I press harder. She arches into it.

“Yes. Harder. You grip me so well. Leave them. Leave them where nobody sees. You mark me so—” Her breath goes. “So fucking good.”

Seven.

The seam sits dead center. Soaked. Hot. She rolls and the whole wet length of her drags my whole trapped length and there is no number after that. I reach for eight. It is not there. Her praise ate it. The drill in my head stutters and stalls and I am an animal with a job and the job is slipping.

She leans back to get a deeper grind and her shoulders tip past my knees. Balance goes. My hands leave her hips. I lunge. Catch her under the arms. Haul her in. Her nails rake my neck. We nearly spill off the bench onto the tile. I get a foot down. Then the other. I stand with her locked on me and the weight of her hits my arms and my cock at the same time.

Ten was the mark. I am at seven. I skipped three. The drill never skips. My grip changes without me telling it to. Not hands under her arms, the catch, the hold that stands a person up and lets go. My palms rake down her ribs. Her sides. Her hips. Under. Hands under her thighs. Fingers dug in. A grip that is not planning to open.

She gasps. Legs scramble. She finds my waist. Crosses her ankles at my back. Trusts the hold. Has to. Third mark. Air. Wall. Her weight is mine or she falls.

“Good,” she says, wrecked, mouth on my throat. “Good boy. You lift me so easy. Like I’m nothing. I’ve got nothing. You’ve got me. You’ve got all of me.”

I want the wall. I want her pinned. I want the sound she makes when she cannot move except how I move her.

First step. Her weight drops onto my cock through both our pants. The seam of her grinds down my length and stops at the base and I grunt. Her left ankle slips off my hip. I hitch her. She locks it back.

“Steady,” she breathes, timed to my foot landing. “Look how steady you are.”

Second step. My ear is on the door. Hall. Vent. Nothing. I feel her thigh tremble in my hand. She is holding on with everything and she has nothing left to hold with. My cock drags under her. Up. Down. Every stride is a stroke I did not ask for.

“You carry me so well,” she whispers. Second footfall. “Nobody carries me like this.”

Third step. Her heat sinks lower. Soaks through to me. The wet patch on my pants is hers now, not mine. My forearms burn. This is floor. This is the last floor I could set her on. Tile, flat, close. One bend of the knees and she is standing and I am clean.

I do not bend. I take the fourth step.

Her back hits plaster. Not a slam that cracks her. A slam that tells the wall she is staying. My right forearm bars beside her head. My left arm hooks under her thigh and hikes her higher until her feet leave every thought of floor. She is airborne. She is mine to hold or she is nothing but a drop.

She feels it. Her breath punches out. Her eyes go wide and soft and hungry.

“You pin me so well,” she whispers. “Good boy. My good, strong boy. Don’t put me down. You hold me so— don’t put me down.”

I will not. The knowing lands ugly and sure. I grind.

Hips to hips. Cloth to cloth. I drive up and she has nowhere to go but into the wall and back onto me. The friction is brutal. Zipper. Seam. Wet cotton. Heat. I feel the shape of her through all of it and it is not enough and it is too much. My teeth find her shoulder through the shirt. I bite. Not to break skin. To stay in my body. She cries out.

“Yes— bite— you bite me so good—” Her hand slaps the wall. “Your arms are shaking. I feel them shaking and you still don’t— you don’t let me slip. You never slip. God. You never slip.”

I rut her like I have forgotten doors and guns and the dark outside the room.

I have not forgotten. That is the rotten part. I hear the vent. I hear the hall. I hear a pipe knock and I clock it as pipe, not footstep, and I keep grinding. Duty and hunger in the same fist. I am failing and I am still working and both things make me harder.

“Good girl.” My voice is gravel. “Take it. Take the grind. So wet for me. So good.”

“I’m good,” she sobs against my ear. “I’m your good girl. You’re my good boy. You fuck me so well and you’re not even in me. God. Kaelen. You hear everything and you still— you’re so good. You’re so fucking good.”

The praise snaps the last clean thought. I rut. Short. Hard. Ugly. The wall thumps a rhythm I would kill a man for making if it was not us. Her clit catches my zipper through the layers on every upstroke and she jerks like I struck her and comes back for the next one. I feel her shake start in her stomach, against my stomach. Fine tremors. Then bigger. Her thighs try to close and cannot. I am between them. I am the only thing holding her off the floor. She has to take what I give. She takes it and tells me I am good for giving it.

Sweat runs into my eyes. Salt. Sting. My arms burn. My cock throbs so hard it hurts, trapped, dragging, leaking into my own clothes until the slide goes obscene. Every grind is teeth and cloth and the wet smack of fabric that should not sound like fucking and does.

She breaks first. I feel it before she says it. Her whole body locks. Toes curl against my back. Nails punch skin. A raw sound tears out of her, not a word, then the words come anyway because she cannot stop praising me even while she comes.

“Good— good boy— you make me— so good— don’t drop me— I’m coming— you’re so good—”

Her stomach jumps against mine. Hard. Twice. Her heels drum my spine with no rhythm. Her thighs spasm around my ribs and let go and spasm again. Grinding. Clothed. No penetration. Just the ruin of friction and her praise in my ear and the wall taking the hits. I feel the pulse of her through the soaked cloth. I feel her try to climb me and fail and trust me instead. That trust guts me. I keep thrusting through her climax because stopping would drop the rhythm and the rhythm is all that is left of the drill. She wails. Bites my jaw.

“Don’t be gentle— you’re so good when you’re not gentle—”

I follow like an animal that heard its name. No choice. The pressure snaps low and mean. My hips stutter. I grind her into the plaster and spill in my clothes, hot, helpless, pulse after pulse, cock jerking against the wet ruin of both our pants. My teeth bare. A sound comes out of me that is not a word. Then it is.

“Good girl. Fuck. Good girl. You take it. You take all of it.”

I shake. Arms lock so I do not fold. Knees threaten. I do not kneel. Kneeling puts her in reach of the floor and the floor is not the plan anymore. There is no plan. There is her weight and my grip and the last dirty twitch of my cock against her as we both ride it out through cloth that has gone hot and ruined and stuck to skin.

She slumps. Forehead to my neck. Breath like she ran. Little aftershocks kick her hips and each one drags a raw grunt out of me. Too much. Not done. I stay in it. I make her stay in it. I do not ease off. The drill is over. The hunger is not.

Silence comes back in pieces. My left forearm cramps. A hard knot under her thigh. I feel it seize and I do not shift my hand. If I shift she drops an inch. An inch is a floor.

Her voice comes out shaken. Not small. Not sleepy. Scraped.

“You’re still hard.” Her lips move on my throat. “You wrecked me and you’re still— fuck. Still hard against me. Still listening. I can feel you listening.” Her hands fist in my shirt. “Good boy. Don’t you dare set me down.”

The right arm comes off the wall. Slow. I lean my chest into her first so the plaster takes her back and my left takes her thigh and nothing moves that should not. Then the hand drops. Finds her other thigh. Hooks under. Now both. Now she sits in my arms and not on a wall and a prayer. The cramp in my left screams at the trade. I let it scream.

I keep her lifted. Wall at her back. My arms under her. Her feet do not touch. I will not set her down. I already know it the way I know a threat in a stairwell. Knowing does not clean my hands.

I turn my ear. Listen. Hall. Vent. Fridge. No boots. No metal. Her pulse against my mouth. My own mess cooling in my clothes. Hers soaking through against me. Sweat. Teeth-marks. The tremble that will not leave my biceps.

The door is behind me. I put her on the wall and put my back to the only way in. I know that. I knew it on the fourth step and I took the fourth step. If someone comes now I am a fool with his hands full of the only person I am paid to keep alive and my spine to the dark. She would not even see it. She has her face in my neck. She trusts me that much. That trust is the softest target in the room and I am the one holding it up at chest height.

I listen harder. I hold harder. I do not put her down.

“Good girl,” I say again. Quiet. Into her hair. “I’ve got you.”

She breathes out against my throat. “You do,” she says. Rough. “You’ve got me so good.”

Her weight settles heavier. Dead weight now. Trusting weight. My arms take it and my arms are failing and my arms will not open. I stay. Wall. Weight. Ear on the dark behind me. Back to the door. Already lost. Already listening. Already sure her feet will not find the floor.