27. Mae

27

MAE

" Y ou're thinking about him, aren't you?"

Jian's words cut through my distracted thoughts and pulled me back to the present. He sat next to me at the bar, glass in hand and a small smile on his face.

"How upset would you be if I said yes?" I asked with a dry chuckle. "Every guy dreams to hear their date is thinking about another man, huh?"

"I invited you out for a drink to make up for when I turned you down," Jian said softly. "And because you need a break. But I'm very aware of how cautious you are about leaving your son with Rocco."

"My mom will make sure nothing happens," I replied, turning my attention to the cherries floating in my own drink. "And it's good that he wants to spend time with him. It's just… hard. I rarely leave him, if ever. So, trying to shed the Mom cap and just be me is… tough."

"When was the last time you went on a date?" Jian wrapped one hand around his beer glass and angled his body toward me. "Before Zack? "

"Uh, geez, you're really putting me on the spot here." I laughed softly and took a drink of my fruity cocktail, savoring the mix of sweet and sour that danced across my tongue.

Jian's invite had been very sweet, and I was more than happy to spend time with him. It was just strange to leave Zack after everything that happened. Rocco had sworn up and down that he had made peace with the people who attacked him and that the war was over. Maybe it was easier for them to believe that because I just could not shake the constant subtle prickle at the back of my neck.

One other piece of good news this past week was about my mother's health. Her illness was only a mild kidney infection and inflamed bowel, but she had perked right up after her first round of medication. She was on the mend, Zack was happy, Rocco was reaching out… and I was distracted while on a date with a gorgeous man.

"Mae?" Jian prompted as my silence dragged on.

"Sorry, I was just trying to remember the last date I had. I think it might have been my one and only date after Zack was born. My best friend set me up with a guy because she was trying to get me back out into things. She wanted to boost my confidence and show that I was still sexy after pregnancy."

"I can attest to that." Jian winked. "Did it go well?"

"Goodness, no." I snorted, amused. "He wanted to go go-kart racing, and I had squeezed a watermelon out of my vagina like six months before. If I got in that cart, I would have burst. So, I talked him into bowling, and he became insanely competitive. We ended up arguing over three points, and then when he took me home, he had the cheek to ask me if he could come in." Chuckling at the memory, I took another sip.

"Safe to say, I did not see him again. My friend Denise was insanely apologetic and tried to set me up again, but I was not letting that happen. "

"Wow." Jian sighed, his lips pulling into a light smirk. "Was he really the competitive one, or was it you?"

"I existed in truth." I smirked. "Those three points were definitely mine."

"Got it." Jian set his beer down. "I promise there will be nothing like that tonight." He slid from his stool and held out one hand to me.

"Are we leaving?" I asked, hastily popping one of the cherries into my mouth.

Jian shook his head. "Dance with me."

"What?" I glanced around at the bar. While it was loud enough to give us a bubble of privacy, there weren't many people up dancing yet. Jian's gaze didn't waver, though, and he wiggled his fingers at me.

"Dance with me," he repeated. "Please?"

The rugged handsomeness of his face melted into a puppy-dog sweetness, and I couldn't resist.

"Alright."

I took his hand, and he guided me out to the dance floor. He slid one arm around my waist and pulled my body snugly against his own, then clasped my right hand in his. Just as my lips parted to speak, Jian dipped his head and captured my lips in a soft, sweet kiss, a gentle press of lips that immediately turned filthy when his tongue slid into my mouth and stole the cherry from on top of my tongue.

"Hey!" I laughed as we parted and he showed off the crimson berry between his teeth.

Jian smirked. "You're welcome to try and get it back."

We moved in time to the music, and the rest of the bar faded away to the background. Nothing else mattered but the hot, solid line of muscle against my body, the way Jian's hips swayed with mine, and the teasing game of trying to catch a kiss to steal the cherry back .

It was a losing game. Jian was much more talented with his tongue than I was, but that didn't deter me. His laughter was addicting, his warmth was alluring, and each sweep of his tongue in my mouth to steal the cherry back raised my heart rate.

We danced until sweat clung to my bare arms in a light sheen, and a few curls across Jian's forehead were damp. The noise of the bar came back to me in a rush as Jian kissed me for the final time and slid the cherry back between my lips.

"Is there a three-point difference this time?" he asked. He kept ahold of my hand and led me back to the bar. I dropped breathlessly onto the stool and flicked some of my long hair away from my sweaty face, accidentally brushing arms with someone seated next to me.

"Maybe not a three-point difference," I decided as I ate the cherry. "But I'm the definite winner."

Jian caught the bartender's attention and quickly ordered fresh drinks as he sat. "Oh, really?"

"Yup. You're disqualified."

Jian raised one cheeky brow. "How, exactly?"

"We're clearly different tongue classes. You were trying to take advantage of a lower rank because I can't do that tongue thing."

"The tongue thing?"

Warmth flared across my cheeks immediately, and I nodded. "Yeah, that thing where you ripple your tongue like a wave, back and forth, and you can press like two parts of your tongue together."

" Oh , that tongue thing." Jian's smirk grew wider. "Should I stop doing that tongue thing?"

"No!" God, no. It felt amazing when he was using it on me. "Maybe only in cherry battles. "

"I said, are you going to fucking apologize?" a voice yelled sharply in my ear from behind me.

Alarm jumped down my spine like I'd been slapped, and then things happened so fast that I could barely track it. One second, a meaty hand sealed around my upper arm from behind and whirled me around. The next second, Jian had ripped that hand free and stood between me and an angry, burly man who was as tall as he was wide.

"Don't you fucking touch her," Jian snapped darkly. There was something deep and dangerous in his voice, like a velvet threat I'd never heard before. My heart immediately started to race, and an enticing heat rushed through my body.

"The fuck?" The drunkard swayed slightly and tried to jerk his hand away from Jian's grip, but Jian was unwavering.

"I said, don't you fucking touch her. Try to again, and I'll rip off your fingers one by one, then shove them so far down your throat you'll be wanking backward for the rest of your life."

"She's the one that fucking shoved into me. Fucking bitches thinking they can do whatever they want!"

"I—" I tried to speak, an apology on the edge of my tongue. Was this the person I accidentally brushed arms with? It hadn't felt that forceful, and I looked him over for signs that maybe I'd spilled his drink. There was nothing.

"You should consider yourself lucky that she touched you, but we both know it was an accident. You're in a bar. People bump into one another." Jian's voice was still dangerously low, and his grip on the burly man's hand hadn't moved despite his struggles.

He started to wince, and his drunken eyes narrowed. "She ain't gonna fuck you," he spat. "Whores like that spread their legs and give you one sniff so they can milk you for fucking cash. "

"I will give you one chance," Jian snarled. "One chance to apologize, and I will let you walk away. I don't want to ruin my date with bloodshed."

"The fuck you gonna do?" The man guffawed loudly, and a small crowd was starting to form around us, a mix of curious onlookers and a few people who looked like they knew exactly who Jian was. After all, if Rocco owned this town, then his guards were just as well-known as he was.

"You're just a scrawny rat, and your fucking bitch of a girlfriend needs to apologize to?—"

Despite Jian being shorter and much, much slimmer than this asshole, all it took was one solid punch from Jian, and the drunk, burly man froze mid-speech. He groaned, took one step back, and then began to fall.

Jian spun to face me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me up from my stool.

"Let's go!"

We ran from the bar, making it halfway to the door before that mass of drunkard hit the floor with a loud thud. Gasps and cries rose from the crowd, and we still ran until we were outside.

The cooler outside air was refreshing, and I gasped deeply, unable to hold in my laughter.

"Holy shit! Are you okay?" My entire body was tightening like a corkscrew. Jian had leaped to my defense so quickly and then taken down a man twice his size in just one punch. All for my honor.

Wasn't that just the hottest fucking thing?

"I'm fine." Jian smiled, his chest heaving slightly. "I've taken down much bigger. "

"Seriously?" I stumbled into him as we walked back to the car. "You're not hurt?"

"Knuckles might ache in the morning, but I'm fine."

"I'm sorry for?—"

"No." Jian cut me off immediately and slid his arm around my waist. "Don't you dare finish that sentence. If anyone should apologize, it's me."

"For?"

"Ruining the date?"

"Oh, honey." I chuckled and groaned softly. "That didn't ruin it. You defended me so quickly, and that was… that was pretty hot."

"Oh, really?" A foot away from the car, Jian turned to me. His eyes sparkled, reflecting the streetlights around us, and the warmth in my chest flooded right down to my core.

Our mouths collided when I threw myself into his arms. He wrapped them both around me and pulled me snugly against his body, then lifted me a little as we walked. I slid both my hands into his hair and snagged the strands between my knuckles, pulling harshly in time to our kissing.

I had no idea how Jian got the car door open, but he quickly deposited me onto the back seat. Our kiss broke, and he slid two fingers into his mouth while I slid my hands down to caress his face.

"Are you horny?" Jian asked huskily, removing his slick fingers from his lips. "Do you want me to take care of you?"

"Yes," I gasped. "I keep thinking of how you got between me and that man so quickly and I—hng!"

In a flash, Jian pressed those two spit-slicked fingers under my dress, past the seam of my panties, and deep inside me in one smooth movement. I arched up into his warmth and whimpered while his thumb slid through my slick folds and caressed my clit.

"You're so fucking wet," Jian growled. "Does it turn you on, what I would do to protect you?"

"Yes," I gasped. I pressed my head back into the seat cushion, blind to all other thoughts. I didn't care that people could walk past and see or hear me. I didn't care that we were right outside the bar where Jian had floored someone with one punch.

All I cared about was Jian's fingers scissoring back and forth inside me while his thumb circled my clit.

"Tell me how good this feels," Jian murmured. He lowered his head and peppered kisses along my jaw to my earlobe. "Tell me how turned on you are from the violence."

"Oh, fuck," I rasped out. Keeping one hand in his hair, I slid the other to his hot neck. "You were so fast, defended me without a second thought. He was twice your size and you just… punched him. You're so fucking strong!"

"Yeah, I am." Jian chuckled, placing hot, open-mouthed kisses down my throat. His tongue slid across my clavicle and rolled in the same way I'd been admiring in the bar.

"Please," I gasped, tugging at his hair and rocking my hips down onto his fingers. "Please?—"

"Please, what?" Jian asked, kissing back up to my ear. "Do you want my mouth on you?"

"Yes!"

"Beg for it."

The raspy growl in his words sent a sharp jolt of pleasure straight through my core, and my muscles clamped down around his thrusting fingers .

"Please eat me out, please. I'm begging. I want to feel your tongue doing that crazy thing. I want you to hold, tease, taste, and— yes!"

He moved so quickly that just as I missed his warmth over me, I melted to the drag of his tongue through my pussy. He pushed firmly against me, sealing his lips over my pussy and sucking hard. His tongue rolled and danced over my clit, his fingers thrust deep, and he utterly devoured me. He ate like a man obsessed, and pleasure coiled tight in my gut so quickly that I scarcely had time to embrace it before it burst through me.

I climaxed with a scream, not caring who saw or who heard. My body convulsed, and I jerked upward. My core rippled, my pussy clenched, and ripples of pleasure cascaded through me in hot, repetitive waves.

I was suspended for a few long, desperate seconds. Then I slumped back down, panting while my heart raced.

"Holy… shit," I gasped. Jian's licks of his tongue became softer, almost caressing my pussy as he cleaned me up. Then he was back above me, kissing me slowly.

"Good girl," he said softly.

My heart bloomed with appreciation, and I couldn't keep the smile from my face.

Fuck.

I was falling in love.