Damian's POV
Fuck, that was hot.
Because I was a sick fuck, the sight of my smaller girlfriend smashing Marquis' nose and sending his man-giant ass tumbling to the floor stiffed me right up. Pride puffed up in my chest at my girlfriend defending herself against a larger opponent. Even though she was in a structured setting, I fought the urge that I pumped my fist in the air.
June joked that I picked the least romantic dates but, frankly, I struggled with how turned on I was during her self-defense class. She did me no favors, dressing in a skin-tight, black leggings and tank top outfit that clung to the curves I wanted my hands running over.
The smell of sweat soaking the gym's air and hardened look from June's instructor Regina slunk me into a corner. We went back to Academy together, when she pinned my cocky ass down during recruit training.
Pretending I dealt with some work-related shit on my phone, my eyes tracked June's progress. Her eyes darting and body movements timid, she was beyond uncomfortable.
I shouldn't be surprised. The woman apologizes to the snake's mice and they're already dead.
Proving my point, June burst into tears while Marquis pinched his nose. From the crooked angle his nose bridge now took, it was broken but I didn't want June discovering that. My feet flew me across the gym, ignoring Regina's heated glare at my shoes stomping on the mats.
"Hey." I wrapped my arms around June's shaking shoulders. "It's alright."
"No, it's not!" Her shrill wail vibrated my ears as she curled into my chest. "I hurt him! I'm so sorry, Marquis!"
"That's the idea." I chuckled and pointed at Marquis, who cursed loudly. "See? He's fine."
"I'm so sorry," her voice husked into my shoulder, where damp spots dotted my shirt.
"He's fine," I spoke over the low howls Marquis released, then shot a glare at Regina.
"So much for your up-and-coming fitness modeling career," she teased Marquis, who glared from behind his pinched fingers.
"Come on." One of the girls in June's class patted his boulder-sized shoulder. "I'm a nurse. Let's get you cleaned up."
With a glance at the blood spots on her floor mats, Regina rubbed her forehead. "We might need to call it a night. Good work, ladies."
"Except me," June whispered.
"No." My hand rubbed her shoulder because the last thing I wanted was she regressed into fear of injuring anyone who approached her with ill intentions.
I didn't need June to know how to attack people, only how to defend herself. Her limb's movements were slow and clumsy through every defensive setup. Sweaty and frustrated, her eyes averted mine as we left.
She still has more work before it's less thinking, more reacting.
For those reasons, I planned to work with June for the next six days straight, before her next class. Our condo building had a gym within the basement and I cleared a space in the stretching area.
Housed in the basement near the garage entrance, the building's gym was decent. It had five of the standard treadmill, elliptical, rowing, and climbers aimed at wall-mounted televisions. A large, open area separated the machines from a large free weights area with large muscle machines.
Also smells ten times better than the version at work.
What I also appreciated about the building's gym was everyone who worked out here minded their own fucking business. I used to exercise in the 34th's gym on my lunch breaks, until one Chatty Kathy after another pounced on me.
Even better than the gym was the four-lap swimming pool, which I also used but not with June. She couldn't swim and whenever she wore a bathing suit, neither could I.
"Seriously?" June's face flamed pink when her eyes took in the other gym rats. "Here? In front of... our neighbors?"
"Yeah." I opened my palms to the mats I spread out. A quick scan showed a guy who lifted weights for five minutes, then snapped ten flex selfies of himself, and an elderly woman who walked on a treadmill with thick headphones on her ears. "No one cares. We'll start easy."
"I..." June's teeth clamped onto her lower lip and the flush remained in her cheeks. "I don't want to hurt you too."
"Marquis is fine," I assured her, although Regina informed me that Imani the nurse took him to the nearest hospital, where they reset his broken nose. "Besides, you need to stop having sympathy for people who intend to harm you."
"But you won't hurt me." Her brown eyes rounded, framed by her thick lashes. She cupped her elbows with her palms, hugging her stomach.
"But you need to pretend that I will." The reminder did nothing to change the way her shoulders crept up to her ears and her eyes darted around the gym. "Please, June. It's important."
Her pupils rounded at the word 'please.' She released her captured lower lip and nodded. "Okay."
"Good." I nodded because, in my mind, she didn't have much of a choice. "Let's start with the pressure points Regina taught you. Which one do you want to try?"
"The umm..." Her hands rubbed her forearms as I waved my hands for her to stand near me. "These ones."
Her breaths turned short and hitched when my hands rested on top of her shoulders. "I'm not going to squeeze hard, alright?" The tips of my fingers circled around her throat. Tension strained the cords of her neck into definition, deepening the divot in the center of her clavicle. She swallowed against my fingers but nodded.
With a featherlike touch I made a mental note to correct later, she skimmed her fingers up the outsides of my forearms. A frown drew her eyebrows together as they poked and prodded my radial muscles and tendons, searching for the gap. I squeezed my biceps, giving her more definition to work with.
Her right index finger depressed on the radial nerve spot, which shot tingles out the epicenter of contact. My fingers flinched, straightened, and flicked the air.
Recognition flashed in June's eyes and tugged up the corners of her mouth. "That's it," I mumbled, my eyes fixed on her. "Try the other side."
Her fingers pushed harder as a flash of determination set her mouth firm. In three poke attempts, she found the left side. She smiled all the way up to her eyes when my fingers spasmed.
"Now that you know where they are," I clenched and unclenched my fingers near the sides of her neck, then held on. "Immobilize my arms."
With a weak thump, June dropped her fists on my arms. She nailed the exact perfect spots, flinching my wrists and radiating numbness around the areas. In an exaggerated movement, I dropped my arms to my sides and grinned at her.
June rolled her eyes. "I didn't bump you that hard."
"Still felt it," I admitted, shaking out my hands then putting them back around her neck. "Again."
Her lips tucked into the corners of her cheeks, more of a grimace than a smile and her chest heaved with a sigh. I lifted my eyebrows and she obliged with tighter fists and a faster drop. The combination struck both my forearms with a shocked blunt force.
This time, my entire forearms radiated with needling prickles. Two dead weights, my hands slipped off her shoulders, helpless at my sides.
Ouch. That smarts.
"That's it." I rolled my wrists and flicked my fingers. Pride warmed my chest as her smile relaxed the strain in her shoulders.
With that simple start, June and I rehearsed her class moves. I couldn't contain the grin tugging on my mouth as I offered up my body as her personal pressure-point voodoo doll one harder, more confident strike at a time. Pride surged behind the numbness flowing through my tendons.
At one point, June struck my right sciatic nerve, buckling my knee and sending my ass to the mats with a thud. A chuckle erupted out the back of my throat.
"Oh gosh!" June's knees bracketed my hips and her warm palms pressed into my chest. With her dipped down chin, a few strands of her ponytail fell over the sides of her neck.
A dizzying sensation came through me from the quick drop and I didn't have much feeling below my knees, but my hand cupped behind her head. With a tug, her lips parted and I smashed mine against them. Swallowing her 'mmph' sound that vibrated my lips, I kissed her hard. The dizzy sensations rushed back in my brain, throbbing my heart with faster beats. With a breath, I pulled off with a soft pop.
Our eyes stayed open the entire time, hers rounded as I leaned back. My fingers stroked through her hair as my eyes circled her face, over the scattering of light freckles and streaks of gray cutting through the warm brown. Tightness pulled my chest, my skin warmed, and my veins tingled with surging blood flow.
For once, it's not going down into my cock. Although, now that I think about where she's sitting -
"I'm so fucking proud of you," I mumbled, my fingers rubbing arcs over her scalp.
A quiet huff left her, bouncing her shoulders and breasts. Saliva pooled under my tongue from the sharp crease line between them as she squeezed her arms into her sides. "I'm not much better."
"In..." My eyes shifted up from my favorite tits in the world to the wall clock. "Ninety minutes, you worked out your uneasiness. That's huge, June."
"I..." Her slender shoulders curled forward, so I sat up until she straddled my lap. A sharp exhale left me as she curled into my lap. Squeezing my arms around her, I rubbed my palms over her upper arms.
"I need to stop for now. And shower."
"Of course." By the time she tipped her head up, my lips were ready. I brushed them against hers again, the soft contact swelling up the traitor between my legs. This time she pressed back, then leaned her cheek against my shoulder.
"Thank you," she whispered. "For not giving up on me."
My arms caged around her and I rested my chin on the top of her head. "Never."
June was silent as we rode the elevator back upstairs. Her shoulder sagged into the wall and her eyes heavy with whatever thoughts ran through her head.
"Hey..." My closest fingers found hers and curled around that warmth and softness in a protective barrier. "I wish you didn't need to know any of this. And hope you never need it."
"I know." Her lashes rested on her cheeks for a few moments, then she opened her eyes. They flashed with a dim sparkle that matched the flatness in her teasing tone, "Occupational hazard."
Mine, not hers.
I arced my thumb over the soft skin between her index finger and thumb. Before June, I sympathized with my married and attached brothers and sisters in blue, to the extent I convinced myself I did any potential partner a favor in choosing to be alone.
My mouth opened for the apology June deserved, the additional stress and uncertainty from a possible physical threat toward her on top of the normal emotional toll my job demanded. All those reasons settled into a pit in my gut, prompting my, "But?"
Her voice lowered to a husky whisper and her fingers curled in between mine. "But it's scary."
While my brain appreciated her open, honest answer, those three words cracked my heart. It crumpled inward, drawing the blood flow out of my face. My cheeks cooled.
Before I responded, her drawn together eyebrows contrasted the playful smile on her lips. "And before you even think about apologizing, don't. I've committed myself to, I'm all in, but -"
"I know," I interrupted because I knew how she felt.
The dark corners that the many, many 'what if?' scenarios that dragged my mind into wasn't a headspace I wished on anyone, in particular June. Fuck, I struggled coping with the horrific possibilities myself.
I didn't have the answers for her because I still sought them myself but I sure as fuck empathized with the mindfuck that came with second-guessing your own safety.
That's why we take every precaution. Stay alert, stay alive.
What I could do was assure her was how she deserved to be protected and what we shared together was worth the risk. June herself taught me the power of diversions cutting through the negative headspace, releasing the locked-up tension and doubts, and finding an emotional connection to hold the fractured pieces together.
And I sure as fuck can return the first favor she blew my mind with.
When Bullet and I returned, he tore away from me in a straight shot into the living room and plopped his saliva-damp jowls on June's lap. She sat on the sofa, staring out the best feature in the condo, the expansive view. Sixty-three floors up, the glowing street blocks were a marquee sign frame around the blackness of Central Park.
Wishing I had a bathtub for her to relax in, I turned on the shower and returned to Bullet in the same, sitting on her feet. June's hand petted over his gray, wrinkled forehead, the softest part on his body. His brown eyes gazed up at her and curled tail wiggled.
He knows.
"Come on." Aware that her next shift started in ninety minutes, I waved for her to stand. "Shower will help."
With one more Bullet head pat, June followed me into the steam-filled bathroom. Condensation fogged the mirrors as we undressed. My skin warmed, coated damp by the time I stepped in behind her.
She stood, head down, the water soaking her hair darker. The strands tugged tighter, splitting at the ends as they released beads of water down the curve of her spine. My palms covered hers where she pressed the wall.
Leaning over, I got a mouthful of shower spray but tucked my chin over her shoulder. After a few moments where her back expanded with breaths, outlining her ribs, I dropped one hand and curled it around her. I palmed under her navel, where my fingers rubbed her wet, smooth skin.
Like whenever June's curves were pressed against me and her buttery soft skin in my touch, my cock lifted itself up with interest. The tip nestled between the soft split of her ass. Heat and interest swelled in me, but I ignored it and hugged her tight. Under the pattering water impact, her heartbeat pulsed in her back.
Rounding my shoulders, I curved my torso around hers. Her breaths turned uneven, bouncing her back against me, but I held her. I would have held her if her legs quit but they locked straight, her calves tensing lines up her thighs.
With an expanded breath, June's exhale bounced off the shower walls. In a low voice, shifted in the direction my body already traveled, she looked up at me under soaked lashes. "Want to know what would make me feel really good?"
I knew the answer but indulged with my lips pressed on her shoulder. One press was never enough. My greedy lips traced the curve up to her neck, nibbling and kissing over her throbbing pulse. "Absolutely."
Her hand lowered and circled around my index and middle fingers. In one gentle drop, she pushed them into the top of her folds. The pads of my fingers into the soft swells released a moan that vibrated us both.
When her hand pulled back, I corrected, "No. Use me."
The side of her neck vibrated as she hummed, heat rising between us from more than the shower. She lowered my fingers to her entrance and, instead of the straight-forward plunge I expected, she circled the inner rim. My eyes closed at the wetness she collected on my fingertips, then spread upward over her folds.
She repeated the movement until my fingers were slicked and her hips rubbed against the movements. A low hum vibrated her back and her shoulders dropped. She kept her head dipped down as she positioned my fingers at the top of her folds, then rubbed back and forth movements, horizontal over the sensitive nerves.
With each harder outside push from her fingers, I pushed mine harder. She swelled under the touch, rushing heat through me. As much as I wanted my other hand's fingers stroking inside her, I left it clamped atop hers on the wall.
"I did this before we met..." Her moaned out confession brought her head back onto my shoulder. Aches throbbed up my shaft from the heady tone she groaned out with, "After we first spoke, the dirty things you said stayed ingrained in my mind."
Her words flooded lust through every thought in my brain. I sure jerked myself off to the memory of her voice moaning and crying out to the scenario we painted in my mind. But I didn't know she was also affected for days after.
As if I need any more evidence of how fucking perfect she is.
"Dirty girl." I nipped the words into her shoulder. My cock cried at her admission, swollen so hard that the skin stretched. Shifting my hips, a bead of precum stuck to where I pushed the engorged head into her thigh.
I skimmed my nose close to her ear and pushed the pads of my fingers over her inner folds. "Is this how you touched yourself? Did you rub like I told you?"
Remembering the exact conversation, June guided my other hand's fingers to her entrance.
My breath hitched as I teased her entrance with light, circular passes. "I remember you saying two fingers wouldn't be enough..."
June's arms lifted, surrendering her control. Her elbows bent overhead, she reached back and threaded her fingers through my hair. I groaned as my eyes followed the trails of water over the beautiful arch of her back, the sway it sinfully enhanced the curve of her hips.
Swallowing hard, I struggled my focus back to what she asked for. "I remember splaying you open wider."
Threading my right knee between her legs, I nudged her thighs wider. "I wanted you open, exposed so I could see your wet heat, see how much you wanted me. How badly I affected you, June."
A soft whimper left June's lips when I withdrew my fingers from her entrance, then lowered the other hand and plunged those index and middle fingers into her wet heat. Rolling my wrist, I tucked my thumb and rubbed the knuckle over the apex of nerves, sensitive from my earlier rubbing.
"Ohh..." she cried out, her walls with a quick clamp down.
Circling my wrist, my fingers passed over her inner walls while my knuckle grinded the outer skin. Palming my hand over her pelvis, I pressed below her navel for added external stimulation. Her nails sunk into my scalp and arms squeezed my ears but her chest lifted and ass jutted out. Rolling and rolling my wrist, I rubbed hard and fast, stimulating her nerves from both directions. My thumb's knuckle rubbed hard, too hard I worried, but her spine stiffened and a gush of fluid soaked my fingers.
"My dear, sweet June..." I hummed into her ear, followed by my lips wrapped around her earlobe. "You're so wet for me, aren't you?"
"Ahhh, fuck..." She sucked in a sharp breath and slammed her head back into my shoulder. Holding in the tension that coiled her body, her back tightened and shoulders quivered.
"You're close, June." A squelching sound squished out under my fingers, spurning them faster. On each circular pass, I hooked my fingers, cupping her inner walls. They swelled up, choking pressure from tip to palm. "So fucking close. Turn your head so I can see you come apart."
"Damian," she moaned out my name, accompanied with a clench of her nails in my scalp. Her head rolled over my shoulder, in my direction. Lust bloomed in her pupils, swallowing up the brown backdrop and gray streaks in her irises.
My voice strained out the rest I remembered. With my brain so fogged over and mesmerized by the heavy-lidded want in her eyes, I wasn't sure what the fuck I said anymore, "You're clamping down on my fingers, June. I need you to let go. Let go, please."
"Ahh!" With one hard push of my palm into her mouth, her cry pierced my ears. Her walls swelled up, entrance fluttered, and a rush of hot fluid spilled out. It gathered in my curled-up palm, then dripped over the edge.
A groan rumbled in my chest as my mouth covered hers. Her tongue met mine, licked stroke for stroke, and my insides broiled with heat.
The same heat pulsed surges of pressure up my shaft, but I resisted the urge I pushed into June from behind. Instead, I gripped myself right under the head. My cock was so hard, so red, that the skin stretched to burst. With one embarrassing tug down, the pressure burst through me. In an upward surge, my cock twitched, jetting white streams of fluid over her thigh.
My hand inside June never stopped, even when my brain dizzied from my release. Her nose bumped mine as her body locked up again. Our teeth clacked under sloppier movements. Swallowing her last scream, I tugged myself empty as she came.
Equal parts of a warm glow and exhaustion flowed through me, starting in my brain and trickling downward. Keeping my fingers inside, I cupped her mound with my palm. Between gasped breaths, I murmured into her lips, "I love you, June."
The red flush in her cheeks, kiss-swollen lips, and blown out pupils, spoked the same volumes as her rasped out, "I love you too."