“I don’t know,” I said, sorting out the cut for the kitchen. “I honestly and truly don’t.”
“Then cheer the hell up.” She nudged up my chin with a powerful dark hand. “You won.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
All my mind registered was an absence. A hollow space in my memory that had been ready to be filled by something more. I knew just who that space was intended for, but I circled around it, refusing to admit.
What would I want with Sean anyway? I’d broken up with Marcus just before spring semester ended and I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I doubted fighter types did relationships anyway.
And well, there was nothing simpler that I could want.
Right, Gabi?
It was nuts. It wasn’t me. In any case, it wasn’t happening.
I hugged Jada goodbye and headed out. The financial district was eerie quiet at nights, with all the tall buildings lining the street darkened and empty. The guests had to park in one of the deserted garages nearby, but we had a small employee lot just behind our place. I scrunched up my apron and rounded the corner
“Hey there, Cadbury.”
I would have screamed, but all the air had left my lungs. The streetlight along this strip of road cast an angled shadow along the building wall. A man separated from it and walked towards me.
I hadn’t really seen his walk but I knew from the power and speed that it was him. His smile glistened out through the shadow, his eyes twinkled and then his lean body materialized into view.
“Sean,” I said.
“So you remember me.”
My hands had stopped shaking, but they started again at the timber of his voice. “I saw you fifteen minutes ago.”
He inched in, and I felt the warmth radiate off him. “Felt like forever.”
This is happening,
my brain screamed. I fought it down and thought back to what he’d said.
“Cadbury?” I asked.
“They make chocolate bunnies,” he said.
“I thought they made cream filled eggs.”
“Yeah, they do. But that second thing doesn’t quite apply to you. Not yet.”
My cheeks heated up violently.
“We had Lindt at my place for Easter,” I said, just to say something.
“I can see you’re wrapped in fancy gold foil.” He bent deep until his breath seared my ear and whispered,“But it’s all the same once the wrapping comes off.”
A vast space pulled apart deep at the center of me. A longing, a heat and a sudden burst of sweat and other wetness that I’d never felt so hard before.
His hand curved around my neck, gentle but unyielding. He pressed me up into his lips. They probed me, taking soft small samples of my mouth. He exhaled a sigh of hunger and then weighed his face deeper on mine.
I was rooted by his lust, able to only decide how much I received. Then, his tongue pressed into me, long and sensuous, and I couldn’t even do that. He tasted like garlic and wine, but then that washed away. I could hear him swirling inside me.
That was it. My hands leaped around his back and I pulled myself deeper against him. His body burned hot but didn’t budge, like alloyed steel. This kiss was delicious but I want to feel more of him. I wanted this body weighing on me, to crush into me. All my gates were thrown open. I didn’t care anymore.
His hands pressed under my butt and cleaved apart handfuls. I sighed into his neck, dizzy. The next thing I knew he was lifting me. We kissed our way through the shadows and then out into the dazzlingly lit parking lot and all the way to the back. A dark black SUV flicked to life as we came near. My alarms should have been blaring red, but he’d short-circuited them. There was nothing he could do to me that I didn’t already want him to inflict on my body.
Sean popped open the back seat and hauled me in. The rear seats had already been tilted back like a bed. Apparently, he’d prepared for me. His vast body scrunched in, and he shut the door, sending us into darkness once more.
I lifted his shirt off, until his white skin lay glowing in the muted light. He unbuttoned my white work dress, working his lips down my bare skin as he revealed it. By the time he reached my waist, I was sure all of me was as wet as those kisses.
He peeled off my pants and his breath huffed hot over my bare legs. I couldn’t even look, the tension was killing me. He peeled down my panties, and I fixed my sight on the unlit passenger light overhead.
I nearly exploded as his lips made contact with me. I cried out loud enough to wake the dead. Thank god he’d parked in the back. If anyone heard, they would call the cops.
His mouth worked on me in deliberate strokes, not rushing or lapping around, but hard steady lines that inflicted the most ecstasy I had ever felt. Before long, my body felt like a vast ocean of liquid, the waves rising higher and higher. His tongue moved urgently, stirring up the waters, and then the last dams in me shattered.
“Oh, Jesus, Sean,” I cried out, writhing under his breath. He did not leave me as pleasure crashed over me again and again, and within a minute another tsunami broke over me. I whimpered against this one, utterly wiped clean.
His mouth came glistening back to mine. I could barely lift my lips to greet it.
“You ok?” he asked.
“By some definition,” I breathed.
“Good.”
His mouth lifted back down and landed on my chest. I could only twinge and sigh as he flicked pleasure from my flesh. His hands were working at something off in the darkness that I could only hear.
Then, that something was pressing hard and insistent at the center of me, right where his mouth had left off. That vast gap in me ballooned open again. Something must have come over my face, cause he smiled at me. Ever so slowly, he pressed in.
My mouth parted and let out air as Sean poured into me. It was a lot of air. He pulled out and sank deeper. In France, they called orgasm the little death. I thought that was just a term for the fellas, but I got it now. It was like I was being speared, but I welcomed it.
He grabbed me firm by the hips and began a hard, steady thrust. Soon, I was keening out into the small cabin. The car frame shook with me. Sean grunted above me and thrust harder, like he wasn’t melding into me as deep as he wanted. Just the sight of his powerful body and chiseled features scrunched up in exertion got me hotter. I must be his hardest fight tonight.
Release came slow then sudden like rolling thunder followed by lightning. Everything boiled over and then my body started to swell with waves of pleasure. I scratched Sean’s bare skin in my throes, bucking against that car seat. That set him off like a firecracker. He shuddered inside me and then I felt him expand and finish. He had on protection, I realized.
Christ, I had never even asked.
We sat locked in place, panting and sweating. I looked up and saw again the bandaged and bruised face.
As the warmth evaporated, Reality rushed back to me.
Who the hell had I just given myself to?
CHAPTER FOUR
Sean
I’d never seen the lights go out of a girl’s eyes so fast.
One moment Gabi was beaming up at me, glowing from the heat of us. The next, her look was ducked away, and she was almost cowering in the seat.
Shit, was she going to cry or something?
My hands were still on her bare thighs, so I took them off. She pulled up her scrunched underpants, still not looking my way.
“You had a good time?” I asked, feeling dopey even as I did.
“Yeah, it was fun.”
She gave me a weak smile, then hustled to pull on the rest of her stuff. I tried to comfort her more, but ended up just dressing silently.
What the fuck was going on here? No girl had ever made me feel like shit for fucking her. She had wanted this just as much as I did. Anyone within a mile radius could attest to the sounds she had made.
What exactly was she regretting? Getting done by a white boy maybe? Or was it maybe letting her fine ass be taken by a Downriver redneck.
She had risen to a silhouette against the light from the back window. Her eyes had nowhere to go but to lay dully on me. I felt an anger start to simmer.
Fuck it. She was the one that owed me. I bet none of her preppie boyfriends - even the black ones - had ever fucked her like I just did. They called me the Irish Tiger in the ring, but I was a beast outside of it too, and a well-practiced one.
Then again, tiger sex wasn’t exactly kind on the female of the species.
“Thank you,” she said. “That was nice.”
Her voice still held nothing, but her mouth flirted with a smile. The rage dashed out in an instant.
“That’s what I aim for,” I said. “Nice. Above average would also do.”
Her lips tucked up into a full grin. I saw a flash of that gorgeous, lush mouth that had drawn me to her. All too soon, it was gone
“I need to head home.” She fumbled for the door handle.
“So fast?”
“Yeah, I gotta go.”
I don’t know what brought about my hesitation. Her body seemed to have fully sated me for the night. I could feel a creeping exhaustion weigh down my senses. It had been a rough fight, and I was glad the boys had gone out without me. I needed rest.
It’s not like I wanted her to come home and watch me pass out.
“Alright, then,” I said. “Let me at least give you a ride.”
“I drove here. I’m fine, don’t worry.”
She gave my arm a gentle touch, then unlatched the door and climbed out. Most of the cars had already gone and the lot lay empty under the sodium night lights. She clipped away on her platforms at high speed, but turned back from the middle of the lot.
“I’ll see you,” she said.
I flung up a palm. “Yeah, drive safe.”
I watched as she climbed into a small German car and eased her way out of the lot. Some messed up urge in me screamed to follow. Follow and do what? I had no idea. I must still be groggy from that blow to the head. My brain signals were all haywire.
I flipped over into the driver seat, took a long swig of water and eased out of the lot. My drive home was a short one. Lafayette Park lay just five minutes down the road and most of that was stop signs and red lights.
I’d planned this seduction all out, driving the SUV out back to make it easier for her to say yes. I could have just gone home, parked and walked back before she came out, but somehow I knew that wouldn’t work. It would have been too much a barrier for a girl like Gabi to cross.
As I turned into the gated lot of my apartment complex, I wondered again if I had done wrong by her. She had wanted me, maybe even been in heat at the scent of me like any bar girl. But maybe she just wanted a whiff of danger, not a big bite.
Screw it, I wasn’t going to see her again anyway.
I parked in an uncovered spot and threw the canvas over the SUV. The thing was just a few weeks old and I didn’t want birds shitting all over it.
The elevator was out, and by the time I pounded up the three flights to my room with my gym bag in tow, I could barely get my keys out without dropping ‘em.
Lucky thing then, finding my door unlocked.
Shit.
It would be just my luck to find trouble when I was at my weakest. I gathered my breath, tensed and flung the door open.
Silvio yelped from the living room couch. “Shit, man, what the hell?”
I sighed as I walked in. “Lock the damn door if you’re gonna crash. How many times I gotta fucking tell you?”
“I’m right here.” His earnest face glowed white from the TV through a cloud of weed smoke. “No one’s going to sneak past me.”
“I’m not worried about them sneaking past. I’m worried about some thug walking straight in, beating up your scrawny ass and taking everything I own.”
“Well, yeah ok, I see your point. But maybe I could just convince the guy to smoke a bowl with me. Black guys love weed.”
I dropped the bag, and went past him to the kitchen off to the side. The fridge still had the leftovers of my protein shake. I plopped down on the couch alongside Silvio and took a refreshing swallow.
“Didn’t say the guy was black,” I said. “He could be a blind one-armed geezer from fucking Japan and still beat you up. What are you doing back anyway? Thought you guys went out to party.”
“You know I do that shit just for you. My style is to just chill at home.”
“My home.” The screen blared colorful from the cartoons.
“Yeah, well, someone’s gotta use it while you’re out getting laid.”
He turned to me with a bleary, questioning smile.
“Yeah, alright,” I told him, already tired of that look. “I got some. That’s what you wanna hear?”
“Yeah! Ma boyyy! Was it that black chick?”
Gabi’s dull look flashed in my brain, accusing. “It was her.”
He waited, but I wasn’t in a sharing mood. The cartoons chittered on screen and drew him back.
“She was smoking, yo.” He chuckled at his drug humor. “I was thinking you might be bringing her back here. Kept trying to remember her name. Abby? Gabe? No, that’s not right.”