Low Sided by A.J. Downey (best detective novels of all time txt) 📕

the top of me. He let out this almost groan of gratitude and let himself go just a little bit more, his pace quickening, his body finding a secret rhythm that sought to unlock all of my secrets.

He felt so good, so wonderful, and my body came so alive under his touch. I tensed, tightening around him and he brought his head up to gaze down at me once more.

“Yeah?” he asked, and I knew he was asking if I was feeling good.

I smiled up into his kind face and whispered back, “Oh, God, yeah.” He smiled, bowing his head, chuckling and picking up his pace. I gasped as he slid over just the right spot inside me and the gate of what could only be described as paradise opened before me.

Dear God, he was good… so good.

13

Mace…

Handling a broken woman is like riding a bike with shot brakes. You don’t go too fast. Bad brakes or no, I was going to take her for a ride, but all I had to do was take it easy. That was alright, I wanted to ride her, but I didn’t want to do that in a parking lot burnout, we had all the time in the world, for a night.

She was sweeter than I expected.

It was like getting an old bike, one that has had miles thrown on it, but had been waiting all its life to end up under you. Raven reminded me of that sort of bike, one that had been treated like shit by its last owner, paint scratched, chrome chipped, spark plugs burned to hell and back.

The joy there was bringing it back.

Bringing a nearly dead bike back from the scrapyard was nothing but joy.

Raven was that broken bike – misused, abused, and then discarded.

Maybe there was something wrong with me, maybe those frat jackasses knocked something loose in my head with whatever they low sided me with. Balls deep in a crazy Burner girl, one that was stirring serious feelings in me, and I was thinking about pipes and cracked seats.

She groaned, and it brought me back around, back to Earth.

I wrapped her up in my arms, sliding one beneath her, cradling her head in the palm of my hand, her sleek bronze hair winding around it, trapped between my fingers and the feel of it was something luxurious. The way she looked up at me, her storm-swept eyes heavily lidded with the pleasure I instilled in her… it was marvelous. She was breathtaking. Limbs that I found so statuesque twining around my body; her touch lighter than falling leaves drifting on eddies of wind.

She showed a gentleness and a care that… fuck… I doubted no consideration like it had ever been given to her and I wanted to be that man which was seriously different territory for me. I was used to breaking people when the occasion called for it. Not for putting them back together – not that Raven seemed to need it much. She was something wild and fierce. A woman who seemed to have it figured out, she just needed a little help along the way.

She moaned, eyes closing, head thrown back, her back arching, pussy tightening around me and I smiled. She was close, really close, I could tell, and I just wanted to drag it out and make it last as long as possible. I wanted to keep her in that place where it all felt good and everything that wasn’t that feel good sensation just fell away. That was the difference between the men and the boys. A boy would thrust away until he was spent, not realizing that the fun wasn’t the destination, it was the ride.

I wanted to ride her as long as I could.

Run her through her gears, take her up and down the hills, feel her tighten around me, shudder, and swoon.

Then again.

How many times could I get her over those hills, how many of the bad things in her life could I make her forget with what I had between my legs?

Several times it would seem.

She looked into my eyes, her cheeks flushed, and her legs trembling. When I couldn’t ease her over another hill, I kissed her as I came. I held her for a moment, and then we both eased down onto the mattress. One of the very few compliments I could give to a condom was that they were certainly tidy. There was no mess that required attention or a towel.

We were a tangle of limbs and soft kisses for a long time; I didn’t even care about how much my ribs burned from the effort.

“I was lonely,” she intoned after a tremulous breath, and I stilled for a moment, putting my hand that had been tracing patterns on her back, flat to it. I said nothing, waiting for her to continue her story.

“So, I signed up on one of those dating apps on my phone and matched up with this guy named Max,” she said. “We talked, for a long time, a few weeks maybe? Then he asked to meet for coffee, and I agreed because he seemed really nice and was a gentleman, you know? Not crude, no dick pics, and sure he was in law enforcement so it would be fine, right?”

I held her a little tighter when her voice cracked. She cleared her throat, sighed, and said, “He talked about his Italian mother, wore a gold crucifix, and seemed like he had a great respect for women. Told me all about it, right?”

My first thought was if a dude had to tell you something like that, sell you on the idea, it should honestly be your first red flag. Dudes that respected women just did. They didn’t have to sell you on the idea that they did. Actions speaking louder than words and all, but I wasn’t about to say any of that. There was no point. All it would serve to do would be to