Riley Thorn and the Corpse in the Closet by Lucy Score
29
10:40 p.m., Monday, August 17
“That was fun,” Riley said as they tiptoed up the back stairs of the darkened house.
“It’s not over yet,” he promised her.
She felt an anticipatory tingle in her lady parts. His hands came to her hips as she navigated the narrow stairs. Her life had changed in so many wild and wonderful ways thanks to Nick. One of those wild and wonderful ways was an adventurous sex life, which she was looking forward to resuming tonight without any interruptions.
When they reached the third floor, Nick put her back to their bedroom door and kissed her long and soft.
“Wow,” she whispered breathlessly when he pulled back. “Where did you learn to kiss like that, Santiago?”
“Alistair gave me a few tips,” he joked.
Riley laughed against his mouth and let her fingers trail down his chest.
“Wait,” he said, catching her hands.
“For what?”
He pointed toward the window. “Follow me.”
Nick opened the window and stepped out onto the fire escape. “Coming?” He held out his hand to her.
Old Riley would have asked at least half a dozen questions—What the hell are we doing on a fire escape? Or when is the last time that thing was inspected? At the very least, have you lost your damn mind? We have a huge bed that we’ve yet to break in with the horizontal mambo.—but New Riley was open to some reasonable adventures.
She kicked off her sandals and climbed out with him.
“Up you go.” He pointed to the metal ladder.
They were already on the third floor. The only “up” was the roof.
“Seriously?”
“Come on, Thorn. Don’t tell me you’re scared of heights.”
“This better be good,” she warned him, taking the rungs one at a time. “Oh. Wow. Okay. This is good.”
“Of course it is. Minus the whole well-meaning stalking, I’m killing this boyfriend thing,” he announced, climbing up behind her.
There was a knee-high spiky iron railing that ran the perimeter of the roof and looked like it was made to impale pigeons. Beyond it, in the center of the flat roof, Riley spotted a nest of blankets and pillows. There was an ice bucket with a couple of beers, and a dozen LED candles flickered to life with a flourish of the remote. A can of bug spray was at the ready next to the blanket.
“Rooftop romance. Not bad, Santiago. Not bad at all.”
He turned her in his arms and walked her backwards until her bare feet hit blanket. “Best part? No one else in this house can climb up here themselves.”
“That is the best part,” she whispered, looping her arms around his neck. “Are you sure it’s safe?” The roof felt a little mushy under her foot.
“Lily swears up and down she had the roof replaced three years ago. Should be solid,” he promised.
Those eyes of his were casting a hormonal spell on her, making her much more interested in getting naked than worrying about structural integrity.
She decided to go with it. He’d made a hell of an effort, and she’d never regretted getting naked with Nick before. What could go wrong?
Her lips found his in the dim flicker of faux candlelight while his hands moved enthusiastically over waist and hips, fingers sliding under the hem of her shirt so he could relieve her of it.
“You’re a hell of a girl, Thorn,” he murmured against her mouth as crickets chirped, frogs croaked, and old people snored beneath them.
“You’re not so bad yourself, Santiago.”
They made quick work of shorts, pants, and Nick’s shoes. When his body covered hers on the quilt, Riley held him against her.
“God, you feel so good under me,” he groaned. “I spend half my day thinking about how it’s going to feel to get you there.”
“What do you spend the other half of your day thinking about?”
“You on top.”
“Perv.” She laughed, and he bit her on the shoulder.
His hands found her breasts and proceeded to do wonderful things to them. And when his mouth joined in, Riley bowed against him, ignoring the way the roof flexed against her back.
There were more important things to enjoy. Like the way his touch made her skin burn in delightful ways. Their kisses became more frantic as Nick fumbled for the condoms he’d stashed in a candy dish next to the bug spray.
She smiled against his mouth.
“What?” he rasped.
“I like that you’re in as big a hurry as I am.”
“I’ve heard good things about makeup sex,” he told her, rolling on the condom and giving her a look that turned her insides to lava.
“Let’s give it a go.”
She felt the roof flex under her again and went still as Nick lined himself up with her greedy core. “You okay?” he asked, breathing heavily.
Something bit her leg. It wasn’t Nick.
She slapped at it just as something else nibbled on her ankle. At the same time, Nick reached around and slapped himself on the ass.
“Did you just—”
“Fucking mosquitoes. Hold still.” Ever prepared, he doused them in a cloud of bug spray.
“Better than the mayflies,” Riley decided.
Every year the riverfront exploded in what looked like a blizzard. But instead of fluffy little snowflakes, the white stuff blotting out the sky was the disgusting exoskeletons of mayflies.
He gave them one last blast with the can of bug spray and then tossed it over his shoulder. It landed with a thunk and rolled much farther and faster than it should have on a flat surface.
“Who fixed the roof? It doesn’t look like they did a very good job.” She had a sudden vision of two idiots with ropes tied around their waists haphazardly nailing boards over a gaping hole.
“Forget the roof, Thorn. I’m about to levitate you off it,” Nick promised with cocky dimples.
His erection twitched between them, and Riley immediately dismissed the idiots in her head.
She took his face in her hands. “I had fun tonight.”
“Yeah? Even though dinner was a bust?”
“It wasn’t a bust. You got to impress your dad and me. And I made over a hundred dollars in tips.”
He looked down at her with a softness around the eyes that she’d never seen before. “I love you, Thorn.”
With a wicked grin and a squeeze of his very firm ass, Riley winked. “I know.”
With that, he thrust into her, and all smugness vanished as she remembered exactly who was in charge.
“How do you make Tab B into Slot A so damn good?” she groaned.
“God, baby. I can feel you locked down over every fucking inch.”
They didn’t have to be quiet. Didn’t have to keep the headboard from knocking into the wall. Didn’t have to make sure Burt the dog wasn’t staring at them creepily. On the roof under the August moon, they were free to bang each other into oblivion.
Riley moaned. “This is the best idea you’ve ever had.”
“No, it isn’t, Thorn,” he said through clenched teeth. “You are.”
Damn. Nick was ready to teach a masterclass in rooftop romance.
They moved in sync toward a common goal: Pleasure. With every thrust, every heaved breath, every drop of sweat, Riley felt closer and closer to him.
She felt those delicious little muscles that had been ignored for far too long before Nick quicken around him.
He growled against her neck. “I feel you, baby. I know you’re ready to let go. I’m with you.”
There was a groan that seemed to come from neither of them. And then she was coming. Nick went rigid above her. She gripped him with her thighs and surrendered to the free fall as their bodies did what Nick told them to. She was halfway through the orgasm of a lifetime when she realized the fall wasn’t just metaphorical. They landed, still joined, with a bone-jarring thump crossways on their bed in a pile of candles, condoms, and roofing debris.
“Jesus Christ,” Nick groaned.
“Did you just—”
“I fucked you through the roof. Are you okay?”
Riley brushed plaster dust off his face. Her bra hung from the gaping hole in the ceiling, which now afforded an unrestricted view of the starry sky. Burt looked up from his dog bed and gave a questioning “boof.”
“Hi, buddy,” she said.
She did a body scan, but everything seemed more interested in reporting with orgasm feedback. “I think so. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I landed pretty hard on you. Or in you,” he pointed out.
“I’m okay,” she assured him, wondering if vaginas could bruise.
He spit out a cloud of dust. “What the hell is this? Drywall?”
Burt jumped up on the bed to investigate just as the bedroom door swung open. “I told you I heard an alien spaceship land on the roof,” Mr. Willicott said, poking the gun-toting Mrs. Penny in the shoulder.
Mrs. Penny accidentally fired the gun into an undamaged part of the ceiling. More plaster fell down. “Whoops.”
Gabe walked in and immediately turned his back on the tableau. “I am unsure how I can be of assistance in this circumstance.”
“Good for you kids, practicing safe sex,” Lily said, plucking a condom off the lampshade on the nightstand.
Fred huffed and puffed into view. His hastily applied toupee was on inside out. “What happened? What did I miss?”
“Nick and Riley are having sex,” Lily announced. “You must not have anchored your sex swing to a stud.” Then she giggled and whispered, “Stud.”
“Why the hell do we end up with an audience every time?” Riley hissed at Nick. Her face was flaming with embarrassment.
“Baby, we’re so damn good everyone wants a ticket.”
To add insult to injury, a mosquito chose that moment to bite her under the eye. Nick slapped it for her.
“Ow!”
“Did you see that?” Lily whispered in delight. “They’re into some really kinky stuff. I can’t wait to tell my pottery class.”
“My mother is in your pottery class,” Riley groaned.
“Stop making noises like that, Thorn,” Nick gritted out in a whisper. She felt him flex inside her.
“You have got to be kidding me. Isn’t there anything that affects your libido?”
“Penny, get me a towel and Riley’s robe from the bathroom. Everyone else out!”
“Lily, who the hell replaced the roof? It should still be under warranty, right?” Riley asked, trying not to focus on the fact that Nick was inside her and they were both naked while carrying on a conversation with their audience.
Fred threw his muscley arm around Willicott’s shoulders. “That’d be the Dream Team here. Can you believe she was going to hire a couple of professionals? Ha!”
