I snap it open. The metal clinks loudly in the quiet shop. The zipper slides down with a harsh hiss.
I don’t pull her jeans off. I slide my hand inside the unzipped denim, slipping beneath the waistband of her cotton panties. My fingers hit wet heat instantly. She’s drenched. The slickness coats my fingertips, warm and viscous, soaking the delicate cotton fabric.
I let her feel my hand for a long second before I move. Just my palm flat against her bare, drenched flesh. Just the heat of my skin sinking into hers, no barrier left. Letting her body register that I’m here, that I’ve crossed the line into her, that the cover is dead.
She moans against my collarbone. Her hips push up into my palm. Trying to make me move.
I don't move yet. I make her feel the weight of my hand against her pussy. The slow proof that I’m taking her at my own pace, on my own clock.
"Fuck, you're so wet for me," I growl, my voice a jagged sound echoing over the record player.
I don’t push inside her walls. The rule in my head is iron. She needs to be undone, shattered before I claim her. I find the hard, swollen bundle of nerves hidden in her dripping wetness. Her clit. I press my thumb against it.
She screams my name.
I clamp my other hand over her mouth. "Quiet. The shop is locked, but the street’s awake. The Syndicate is still out there."
She bites my palm. A defiant little nip. Her eyes flash at me over the edge of my hand, furious and starving. I love that she doesn't just melt into a puddle; she demands. She pushes back. She wants to take control. But right now, her body belongs to my hands. She has no control left.
I start moving my thumb. Slow, agonizing circles over her clit, spreading her thick slickness over the swollen nub. The wet, obscene sound of my fingers working against her flesh mixes with the crackle of the record player. The bassline thumps. My thumb matches the rhythm.
Press. Circle. Drag.
She whines against my hand. Her hips snap forward, trying to force my fingers deep inside her aching passage.
I block her. I keep my fingers flat, pressing down hard, denying her the penetration she's silently begging for.
"Not yet," I whisper against her ear, my hot breath washing over her skin. "You don't get all of me yet. You're going to take this how I give it to you."
My free hand fists in the back of her hair. Tilts her head up. Her eyes are blown wide and dark, her lower lip caught between her teeth. The defiance is melting into hunger in real time.
"You're going to come on my hand," I tell her. The words are low, dark, final. "Right here. Against my fingers. In the panties you should have taken off before I walked in."
She whimpers. Her thighs tremble around my hand.
"And then," I rasp against her mouth, "you’re going to tell me thank you."
The wet, slapping sound of my thumb working her clit is filthy in the dim shop. The Fleetwood Mac bassline keeps thumping behind us. The needle is moving toward the end of the song. So is she.
I apply more pressure. My thumb rubs relentlessly over her clit. With my other hand, I grip the back of her thigh, hiking her leg up higher around my hip. I press my own agonizingly hard cock, still trapped behind the denim of my zipper, against her core. I grind my hips forward as my thumb works her.
Friction. Heat. Scent. Slick.
Shes spiraling. The tough, independent record shop owner is dissolving into a trembling, needy mess in my arms. I watch her face. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her brow furrowed in pure, unadulterated pleasure. The sass is gone. The burden of running this shop, of paying off Syndicate scumbags, of carrying her mother's ghost—it’s all gone. I’ve wiped her slate clean. There’s only me. Only this burning, undeniable Ignition tying our souls together in the middle of a war zone.
"Tyler. Tyler, please, I'm burning up."
Her words are a slurred, desperate prayer against my lips.
"Burn for me," I command.
I increase the speed. My thumb flicking rapidly over her soaked clit. My hips driving forward in punishing, rhythmic grinds. The denim of my jeans is soaked through with her wetness. I can feel the damp, scorching heat of her against my own skin. I’m so fucking hard my vision is blurring at the edges. My balls ache with a throbbing need to empty my seed deep inside her. The urge to breed her, to claim her, to ruin her for any other man on this earth is a deafening roar in my skull.
But I hold the line. I refuse to cross it. She deserves the total devotion of a full claiming when the doors are locked and the threat is dead. Right now, she just needs to break.
"Come for me, Wendy," I order her. "Give it to me right now."
She shatters.