The last thing I hear before completion engulfs me is his soft laugh, and then the roar in my ears as pleasure explodes through me and carries me away on a sea of release.
I wake up late in the morning. Startled, I sit up in a strange bed in a strange room and hear strange noises outside in the street, in some strange part of town.
‘Hey. Sleep well?’
I look round. Across the room Darnley’s in an easy chair, one ankle across his knee, a cup of coffee at his elbow. He’s working at an open laptop. With a lithe, graceful move he deposits the laptop on the floor, rises to his feet and sits next to me. With warm, patient fingers he prises the sheet away from my breasts where I’d snatched it up in a scared reflex.
Arching a brow at me he hesitates a moment before stooping and kissing my breast, running his finger over the light marks still glowing on my skin. ‘How do you feel?’
I smile, leaning back on the pillows and pushing the sheet down further so he can admire my all. His dark, appreciative look is sweeter than chocolate, more soothing than honey. Who needs beauty treatments when you’ve got a lover?
‘Wonderful.’ It’s the only word for it.
He leans forward and kisses me on the lips, his fingers moving gently over my nipples, making them tense and pucker all over again, as the faint marks on my skin glow under his touch. ‘
These
should be gone by evening.’ He traces the lines with his fingertip, making me arch my neck.
‘And I was hoping that
these –
’ he folds his hands around my wrists, weighing them like fruit on a stall, his touch lingering and fond ‘– will stay a little longer. You could stay here a few days if you like. Just till we find out about that woman.’
I wind my arms round his neck, leaning into his touch like the eager slut I’m fast becoming. ‘It’s a tempting offer. But I’m my own woman, remember?’
His eyes flicker, his inner Dom still close. ‘Hey. You’re my woman too.’
The rest of Sunday goes by in a golden haze. We have a lazy breakfast, a lazier lunch and all afternoon we lie around listening to recordings of his favourite music while he compares them in detail. At times we talk about nothing special, silly things like ball games and old films.
We skirt round certain topics. For once I steer clear of Freda, though I’m burning to ask. He stops asking me to move in with him, though my will is steadily weakening.
While he’s out of the room my phone signals. I check the display with a grin and lie back on the rug. ‘Billy, hi. How was Mexico?’
Willamina Brown, aka my best friend Billy, is back from her travels. This time her law firm – actually Darnley’s father’s Boston office, where she’s slogging through an internship as a courier and loving every minute – has just sent her down Mexico way with some papers and she made the most of her stay with a quick detour to Cancun.
While she tells me about her trip I smile fondly, half my mind admiring Darnley as he paces the other room. I’m only half listening when I tune back in as she mentions her apartment.
‘… So you’re OK to stay there for a while yet. With this Europe thing coming up we may be away for months.’
I sit up in alarm. ‘What Europe thing? You’re going away?’
‘Hey, not so loud. I told you, it’s a secret. Even I’m not supposed to know. But you know what Eldon’s like. He tells you stuff without meaning to. It’s all to do with some movie short he made last year. They want him to enter it in some special festival. Nathan Rawson’s pretty excited about it. But don’t breathe a word. Oh, and have fun tomorrow. I hear he’s doing a final take of some scene or other.’
‘Balcony scene from
Romeo and Juliet
,’ I say, my mind racing. ‘It should play well. He enjoyed the rehearsal.’
I hear her laugh. ‘Tell me about it. He hasn’t drawn breath.’
Just then a man’s voice murmurs in the background and I gather Eldon’s walked in. Billy gives a throaty giggle. ‘Gotta go. Have fun, babe. Don’t fall off the balcony.’
As she ends the call I stare thoughtfully at the phone. I’d heard of Nathan Rawson long before I met him. A rising star in the alternative movie scene, he’s also making waves in Europe. But when we met I’d no idea who he was. I was too busy trying to rescue what was left of my few precious days with Darnley and reeling from the reek of stale cigarettes in my room at Camp Akela.
That afternoon I thought of him only as Ponytail.
‘What’s up?’ As Darnley walks in his piercing look sends a shiver through me.
‘Nothing,’ I say quickly. ‘That was Billy. Back from Mexico.’
His eyes gleam as he joins me on the rug. ‘See? She’ll need the space to entertain her doting boyfriend. You’ll have to move in now.’
He says this with an air of triumph and I feel a pang. He’s proud of his brother but their rift lasted years. He’s still trying to get used to talking about him like he’s a regular brother after they got back together in the summer. It’ll take a while.
I feel a lump in my throat as I think how much it means to him. But now he’s leaning next to me, his look fond, his hand straying into all the places I like his hand to stray.
‘We’re eating out. Somewhere downtown.’ His slow smile makes me shiver.
I inspect my emergency clothing selection, already ferried here by his patient staff. Luckily it includes skinny jeans and a vivid top. I add extra make-up and last night’s heels and pile up my hair and soon we’re out on the town, hand in hand and having fun.
It’s like being on a hot new date. I’m still a bit tender in places but ridiculously happy after last night. Who knew an endorphin rush could last this long? We behave like kids and go for Italian; not quite Lady and the Tramp but pretty close. We spear ravioli parcels with our forks and tempt each other, tell silly jokes and ignore the other diners. The waiters quietly refill our glasses with rough red wine. We leave late.
When we get back he pours us both drinks and we collapse together on the rug like it’s the first time in months. He takes charge of my mouth and unfastens my jeans, pushing me back down when I laugh in protest and reach for his flies in a
quid pro quo.
‘Hey. My treat. Remember?’
He pulls my jeans down a little way, pushes my thighs wide and shifts further down till he’s kneeling between my legs and now he starts to feast, his tongue hard and controlling, his hands warm, firm and eager. After yesterday I’m still live as a wire all over. I writhe with impatience, longing to touch him, to tease him like he’s teasing me. He’s holding me off with one hand and a meaningful grin while I moan and whimper with arousal as his hungry mouth searches out every sensitive little fold and explores every tingling little place.
Just as I think I have to come he looks up with a stern gaze that sends a tremor through me. ‘You’ll have to turn down the volume if I’m going to do this as often as I need to.’
‘
What?
’
I gasp, part laughing and part furious that he’s stopped. ‘Why?’
He leans over me, his face so serious I feel a shiver of dismay. He switches from hot date to scary Dom in seconds – and sometimes by way of something in between that’s too weird to think about, so riling him at intimate moments is always risky.
If you play with a Wolfe you risk a bite. Now his steady gaze sends shivers through me and at the same time I want to laugh. He needs to
eat me out
? ‘Be my guest.’
He’s not smiling. ‘I mean it. I may need to do this when there are people around. And if you make a racket you’ll have to be punished. Like
this.
’ All at once he spins me over, exposing my hot, glowing rear end, and his hand lands in a volley of hard slaps that make me yell. Thrillingly, he leans down and murmurs in my ear, fondling my burning backside like he’s soothing me with lotion but it’s his touch that sends fire and ice through me, the sting and the sensual sweep of his fingers sparkling all over my back.
‘I’m going to do that again. If you cry out this time we’re going back downstairs to do it with a cane.’
Yikes.
I take a few deep breaths before I can trust myself to speak and then I feel a deep throb from down below that tells me to lighten up – this is fun. At least I hope it is. And now I’m curious – partly about what he’ll do and what makes him tick, but also about me.
Why do I like this so much?
And at what point, precisely, should I stop liking it?
‘OK. Try it again. I’ll see if I can keep quiet.’
This time I clench my teeth. The slaps are harder now, each one a jolt. I sense he’s enjoying this on some new, faintly scary level. But my attempt at dignity seems to please because he rolls me back and his eyes burn down into mine.
‘Hey, impressive. I’m proud of you.’
I smile at him from under my lashes. ‘So do I get a reward?’
‘Coming right up.’ He resumes his feast and in seconds I’m thrashing with pleasure as a massive orgasm crashes through me, all the more powerful for his brief, scary interval. This time I try to keep quiet but my bliss is too intense and a few strangled moans escape me.
His stern look scares me again but thoughts of the dungeon lurking in the basement remind me that he’s done this often. I can’t resist it; the question, so long pent up, bursts out of me. ‘Did you do that with other lovers?’
His look darkens. ‘Listen. My past is just that: past. Yours too. It struck me the instant we met that you live in the present. It’s very refreshing. Let’s stick with that. Agreed?’
‘OK.’ I swallow. But my past is just a past. His poisons his life and seals off his heart. Maybe now’s not the time to remind him.
He kneels up on the rug. ‘Get up on all fours.’ His tone has lowered.
All at once we’re back on Wolfe Time and I’m receiving a
command.
A thrill shimmers through me even as I smile him a question.
His calm look gives me no answer. I do it, thinking maybe he wants to play some weird new spanking thing but all at once he frees himself and I know exactly what he wants:
he wants my mouth
.
‘Stay on your hands and knees and suck me off. I want to see you humbled.’
I hesitate, frowning for a moment. ‘Why?’
His faint, sardonic smile brings a flush to my cheeks. ‘Because I think you owe me an apology for doubting my word. And because I feel like it. You’ve had your reward. Now I want one.’
His slow grin sends a glow through me; so we
are
playing, after all. Eagerly I lean over him and lick, taking him deeper as he groans, his quickening breath telling me this is urgent and overdue. He holds very still while I push down to swallow his stifling length. I struggle, fighting for breath. But I do it a few times and then ease back up, licking eagerly, teasing him with my tongue.
He murmurs explicit instructions as I do it, the catch in his voice firing my excitement. I can’t quite make out if he’s angry. Even that arouses me, making my burn glow into a slow, nagging ache.
‘Take it deeper. All the way. I want to feel your face on my belly.’
I do it, lunging forward eagerly now, gasping for air when I pull back, surprised and proud that at this angle I can yawn my throat open nearly far enough to take him whole without the gagging. And sure enough my own climax starts to build again, softer now, the thought of how I look, and how I must
feel
, sending little ripples over my skin, teasing me towards orgasm but far too gently to take me there …
‘Stop.’ His command has a steely edge, his breathing ragged. ‘Hold the position.’ He shifts away from my field of vision as I pant, sweating slightly, partly to get my breath, partly in mid-flow as my climax seethes and simmers somewhere deep between my legs.
I was enjoying that
…
Now he’s kneeling up behind me, parting my thighs with firm, urgent hands. He leans over my back, his mouth hot on my shoulders, along my neck and all down my spine as his hot, moist kisses send little controlling messages all over me in points of flame that spark and tingle deep my groin. The ripples get stronger. And now he reaches round to explore me, slipping deep into the richness of my needy folds, surging up into me and sliding out, again and again. All at once one hand slides right up into me. His other, just as wet, just as slick and just as intrusive, fastens around my hot, exposed little flower and he pushes right up into me.
I stay very still as he slides in – slow, huge, merciless. I hold my breath, partly in shock, partly in fear. For some reason I wasn’t expecting this so soon. Now he’s inside me I ask myself why. He does this all the time.
He murmurs close to my ear, the heat of his body cladding my back, still tingling and tender from the attention he paid it last night.
‘Relax. Let me in. You’re very tense.’
All at once his busy fingers send me a merciful distraction as a massive climax builds deep in my lower belly, vast and unstoppable as a tank. With so much pleasure poised to explode there’s no way I can clench, and with a shout of triumph he starts to thrust, slowly at first and then faster, and all I feel is heat and fullness and with one last flurry of his fingers I erupt.
Singing, or something very like it, fills my ears. Over it I hear him shout and he comes too. We fuse together for long moments as our bodies linger on the peak of pleasure and then we slowly collapse on the rug, still locked in our embrace, thrilling and intimate, pleasure heaped on rapture.
As evening comes on I get ready to leave. I ask him about Cola, hoping my curiosity’s not too obvious. ‘Do you know anything about her stalker?’
‘Nope. Her people are very cagey. All they say is he’s very persistent and she’s at high risk.’
I decide not to cloud the waters with my new theory so I merely hint. ‘But … does her behaviour strike you as normal for a victim of a stalker?’ I recall her weird sortie into the club yard the other night. ‘Surely she’d stay close to her minders, not keep running away from them? If I was being stalked I’d be scared witless.’
Plus I’d be
grateful
. But then I’m not a spoilt brat. I leave out this part but the thought must show in my face.
He shrugs. ‘Her people are experts. They’ll deal with it.’ His bored tone warns me Cola’s slipping down his agenda.