Ames wasn't much for public spectacle. She earned her keep in air ducts and moldering alleys, in lonely hallways and in subterranean corridors inhabited only by dripping pipes and aging flood lamps. She was meant to live out of sight, out of mind, and to leave no trace behind but picked locks and empty safes.
And that's why- more than Guerrero's fingers curving over her hip to play with the lacy trimmings of her garter belt, more than his lips ghosting over her neck—it was the sight of the people meandering by only a few stories below that made her heart race.
"They'll see us," she said. She'd have swatted his hand but she was braced between his body and the window, leaving little room for her arms to move without unbalancing her. Her backside jutted against the bulge she could feel pressing through the soft fabric of his slacks. It straddled the seam of her cheeks, present but not insistent, like a promise.
"You say that like it's a bad thing,"
She met his gaze reflected in the glass with widened eyes. "Of course it's a bad thing."
A couple exited a restaurant across the street and paused at the curb, waiting for a car to pass. The woman threw her head back, laughing at something her partner had said. If she opened her eyes now…
"We're criminals. Bad things are kind of what we do."
"Yeah, but-" It was getting hard to concentrate as his fingers traced patterns in the trimmed "V" of hair below her belly. Every so often he'd venture just shy of touching her clit, then withdraw when she began to squirm. Bastard. She should've known better than to take up with a sadist. "—what if they call the cops?"
"They won't. The average person has a remarkable ability to ignore things that make them uncomfortable." He ignored her huff of protest when his hand trailed up to her breast. He thumbed her nipple almost idly as he spoke. "Especially when those things are actually a little exciting."
"The threat of getting busted for public indecency is exciting? I never pegged you for an exhibitionist."
His voice was a murmur, but the words reverberated all the way down her spine. "Says the woman who's about to get fucked in full view of the dinner crowd."
She shivered and swiped her tongue over lips that had suddenly gone dry.
"You haven't moved yet," he pointed out.
She wanted to protest that of course she hadn't moved, she couldn't move with him pinning her like that, but she knew full well that if she really wanted to retreat to the privacy of her bedroom, he'd let her. But he was making it hard by being so, well, hard against her, and by whispering so enticingly into her ear. And that damnable hand was working its way down once more, and it was all she could do not to whimper in anticipation.
"I think it's because—whether you want to admit it or not—you're enjoying this." His fingers lingered above her clit again. So close... "You want to come knowing that all those people will watch you do it. You want them to see the face you'll make. The way your body shakes. You want them to see all the pleasure they can't have."
She had no answer for that. The only sound between them was her breathing, visualized by a patch of fog on the window pane.
"Tell me I'm wrong," he said. "Tell me you don't want all those people to see me fuck you."
The words were there, waiting, but they couldn't quite make it out. And then they didn't matter at all because Guerrero's fingers were sliding over her, then into her, and she didn't think she'd ever been as ready for him as she was in that moment. Her very bones seemed to sag in relief at his touch.
He stepped closer, eliminating what little space remained between his body and her back. Suddenly she was pressed against the window like an offering to the street below. Her palm squeaked over the glass in time with her rocking back to match Guerrero's rhythm. The sound seemed impossibly loud to her ears.
"Well then," he said, smirk evident in his voice as his fingers made a particularly clever motion and stole a sigh from her lips. "Let's give them a good show."
Later they wound together beneath her bed sheets, feeling too tired to do much else. Her cheek rested on his chest while he played with her hair. The quiet drone of her laptop on the dresser across the room joined the notes of white noise in the atmosphere: the sound of his breathing, the flag on her neighbor's balcony whipping in the air, and the faint sounds of traffic rumbling by below.
"We should do that again," she said. Her calves still burned from the odd angles she'd spent the last hour in, but it was a small price to pay for the flush of pleasure she felt at the memory of him bending her over and plunging into her while the world looked on.
"The spirit's willing but the body needs a nap," he said.
She rolled her eyes and swatted his side. "Not now."
He smiled. "Now who's got the exhibitionist streak?"
She wrinkled her nose at him. Then, she sobered. "You know…I've always kind of wanted to try something like that. Never had the nerve, I guess."
"Oh yeah?" Hemade a thoughtful noise. "We could do it in the office next time."
She raised an eyebrow. "With Chance there?"
A shrug. "Depends on how far you want to push things."
"Why don't we start off small?"
"Small, huh? Well, there're always more windows. And who knows? Maybe next time we'll even have the lights on."
"Definitely smaller than that."