Outside The Lines:: Third Person Narration (16 page)

But she shrugged him off, not moving away, and instead pushed her mouth down on him until his cock hit the back of her throat again and she swallowed and then he was done. If she wanted him to come like a train in her mouth, he was all for it.
 
Instead of insisting she stop, he sat up straight on the couch and pushed his ass to the edge. She backed up as he moved forward, keeping her mouth hot and wet around him.
 

He put his hands on her ribs and brushed them down her sides, ribs to hips, thumbs on her back, fingers brushing her belly.
   

Her body shuddered and she scooted closer on her knees, curled her fist around his cock and stroked him deep into her mouth. He slid off the couch to the floor, and knelt up in front of her.
 
She followed him, dropping to her elbows, her hips thrust up. If he wanted, he could lay across her back while she sucked him, pump into her mouth as if it were her pussy.

He stayed up on his knees, ran his hands down the silken arch of her back, over the nubbly pearl-bumps of her spine. the fingers of his hands coming together as he went, into the crease of her bottom.
 

He felt her whimper, it rumbled around his cock, then her low moan vibrated him as her head bobbed faster.
   

He slid his fingers down to her cunt and shoved them deep inside.

She tossed her head, so his erection slid free out of her mouth as she cried out, a hot whimpering, high-pitched cry that almost made him come. She grappled for him. He felt her lips trying to encircle him again, and he reached down with one hand and gripped himself, guided his cock back in.
 

Head spinning, he put a palm gently on her spine and exerted light pressure to coax her to arch for him, which she did, whimpering, pushing her hips up, an invitation for deeper incursions.
 
He obliged, slid his fingers through her slipperiness, until he found what he wanted, the swirling nub of her. He moved in with ferocious skill, flicking and pressing her clit with swift, rhythmic sweeps.
 

Release barreled down on him. He pumped his hips forward, fucking her mouth. Harder, faster, her teeth occasionally scraping him, her hot, tight mouth taking him deep, her breath coming loud.
 
Sliding his thumb up, he pushed it in, nudging into the seam of her bottom, and touched lightly on the tight pucker of her ass.

He felt her scream in pleasure, felt it vibrate around him.
 
Then her body clenched, and she gave a long shuddering cry and went down to the floor, pushing her hips up.
 
Arousal pounded so hard through his blood he couldn’t see straight anymore, but he pressed her for more, until the movement of her hips became frenzied, until her mouth loosed him because she was crying out too wildly, until her knees buckled and she was laid out flat on the furs with his fingers deep inside, whimpering his name, begging him.

“Come for me, babe,” he said hoarsely.
 

He felt her flesh undulate, then her body bucked and her pussy squeezed his fingers as she came in hard, rocking jerks.
 
He shifted to kneel behind her, ripped a condom free and rolled it on, then plunged into her in with a savage, hard thrust.

She flung her head and cried out as he came, deep inside her, seeing stars, thinking this was a long way from a battlefield, a long way from swimming with sharks, and that how, for all his wary vigilance, he’d never seen her coming.

Later, sometime, a long time later, he dragged them into his bed and fell asleep.

Chapter Twelve

JULIETTE DIDN’T FEEL the need for sleep.
     

She didn’t feel tired.
 
She didn’t even feel awake.
 
She felt…alive.
 
It coursed through her in hot waves of…aliveness.
 

She felt like spring, like a conqueror.
 
Men might need sleep after what they had done, but she felt like she’d been injected with sugar.
 
And caffeine.
 
And tiramisu.
 
She could run a mile, ski the bunny hill.
 

Work.
 

She rolled onto her side and pushed up on an elbow to peer down at Johnny’s magnificent, prone body. He had one arm thrown above his head, across the pillow, so it curled around the top of his head. A line of hard muscle under silky skin was faintly defined in the moonlight. His jaw was shadowed by the day’s growth of beard, the same rough shadow that had scraped her raw.
 

Her scraped-raw jaw and thighs flushed at the reminder.
 

His body was lean muscle, perfectly worked. She admired what she could see of it for a moment, then, slowly, it dawned on her: he was scarred. His body was covered by scars.

She leaned closer. Hard, white lines crossed him at odd angles, some short and ragged, others long and lean, like a knife cut. On the side of one shoulder was a puckered dart of a scar, pulling in tight on itself, like a hole had been made, then sewn up.
 
He had another one, down on his uncovered thigh.

He’d been shot.
 

Repeatedly.

A wave of something so terrifying moved through her, something hard and fast and cold, that she scooted backward in the bed.

Without opening his eyes, Johnny reached out and felt his way around to the nape of her neck and cupped her head as he murmured roughly, “What the fuck is going on, Jauntie?”
 

Johnny even cursed coming out of sleep. That made her smile.
 
Cursed in a tone that mimicked something she’d read about in self-help books: affection.
 

That made her belly slide.

“What’s wrong?” he said again, mumbling.

“N-nothing.”
 
She swallowed.
   

One green eye slitted open and considered her in the moonlight.
 
“You sure?”

“Absolutely.” She nodded to show she meant it. She had no intention of asking this man about his gunshot wounds.
 

He flexed his hand and pulled her down, right up to his half-open green eye. “Then what the fuck are you staring at me for?” he growled.

“Because I think you’re beautiful,” she said without any guile at all.
 

He gave a low laugh, swiped his thumb across her cheek and let his hand fall back to the bed. His eyes closed.

She whispered, “Actually, since you asked…Johnny, do you think the judge sent you those documents yet?”

A moment of silence followed. Eyes still closed, he said, “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You want me to check now?”
 

“Well, yes.”

His eye opened again.
 
“Are you joking?”

“No.”

“You know we just had sex?”

“Yes, I remember. It was very nice.”

His other eye peeled open.
 
“Nice?”

“
Very
nice.” Her face flushed in the darkness. “So, do you think he sent those docs?”

He considered her through the faint light coming through the window, a silvery grey illumination of moonlight reflecting off snow.
 
“You really want this?”

“Yes. Bad. Real bad. I can’t sleep.”
   

He gave a faint groan. “And rent receipts will help you sleep?”

“Like warm milk,” she assured him, and smiled encouragingly.

He eyed her smile, then pulled her down again, close to his face. “You owe me.”

“Anything,” she whispered.

He pressed his lips to hers, then pushed up and rolled out of the bed and stalked into the other room, buck naked.
 

She sat up fast to watch him go.
 
At a distance, you could hardly see the scars. Except that long one down his back.
   

She heard him punching away at keys on his computer in the other room, then the faint whirr and mechanical jostling of a printer. A few minutes later, he strode back in, papers in hand, his flaccid, still impressive self, hanging free in a nest of dark hair. Her face flushed.
 
But she didn’t look away.
 

He handed her the sheaf of papers, then fell face-down into the bed.
 

“Sleep tight,” he growled as he rolled onto his side.
 

She held the papers and whispered, “Thanks.”

No reply.
 
She leaned over and peered down at him.
 

It had been about three seconds and he was sound asleep. Impossible. She reached out to touch him, to make sure.

“If you touch me, I will fuck you,” he growled.

She dropped her hand with a start and sat back.
   

Johnny’s body emanated heat onto hers as she lay there, aware of a whole range of slippery, sliding sensations that probably should not be examined when the cause of them was lying right next to her.
 
But they were there nonetheless, examined or ignored, in her belly, between her legs, and even in her chest, which was odd, because that’s where her heart was.

She straightened up fast, plumped pillows against the headboard, put a pencil behind each ear, and opened her laptop to find a series of emails, all with attachments, from Mrs. B.
 

She smiled and, by the light of her glowing laptop screen, went to work.

JOHNNY SNAPPED fully awake at two a.m.
 
He knew exactly where he was and exactly who was with him.
 
The skill was too deeply-ingrained to leave it behind simply because of great sex: you always knew where you were, who you were with, and what they were doing.
 

Anyhow, his subconscious had dreamed of Juliette, and his body was ready for more.

He could smell her, feminine heat and sex.

He looked over.
 

She was sitting in the bed beside him, upright against a pillow, cross-legged under the covers, looking at papers, a pencil behind each ear and one between her teeth, frowning faintly.
 
Her hair, usually so sleek and controlled, was almost voluminous, so mussed and tousled and even knotted in spots she looked like the ‘before’ spot in a shampoo ad.
 

She looked incredible.
 

She was wearing a tight, simple ribbed tank-top.
 
Fire-engine red.
 

Of course.
 

Her hair was down, a dark contrast to her pale skin and the crimson red of her shirt.
 

He rolled over and skimmed a hand under the cover, up the inside of her bent knee.
 

She gave a startled jump. “Oh, Johnny, hi.”

“You were expecting someone else?”

“No, I just never…I didn’t know you were…. Oh,” she exclaimed as he slid his hand up further. “Should we really…I mean, we have work to do….”

“You didn’t put clothes on,” he pointed out as he rolled to his stomach.
 

“Oh.”