Outside The Lines:: Third Person Narration (17 page)

“That means sex.”

“Well, I,
oh,
” she gave a strangled sound as he coaxed her legs apart.

“Oh,” he agreed, sliding his hand up further and encountering a pair of underwear which he thought he’d disposed of pretty effectively last night.
 
He stopped his progress. “What are these?”

“Well, it’s just…it’s
underwear
, Johnny.
 
It’s what people do.
 
Most people wear underwear.”

“Fascinating.”
 

“Listen, you should really look at these docs.”

“I will.
 
In a minute.” He felt his way up the lean muscles of her thigh.
 

“How about now?
 
I want to know if you can see anything.”

He paused, then rested his elbows on the bed and considered her. “Why?
 
What’d you find?”

“Nothing,” she reported glumly.

“And that’s a problem?”

“Well, it’s just unexpected.
 
But no, how could it be a problem?
 
Everything seems in order.
 
All the numbers tally.
 
All the money’s accounted for.”

“You thought he was hiding something.”

“I was sure of it,” she agreed morosely, flipping at the papers covering her chest and fluttering around her like leaves.
 
“I mean, it’s careless money management to the point of stupidity, but it’s not criminal.”
 
She sighed and looked at him with sad eyes.
 
“I guess people aren’t always lying, cheating scum.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”
 
He pushed the papers and laptop to the other side of the bed. “What’s the issue with money management?”
 

“Oh, nothing. The paperwork from Mrs. B shows that all the payments came in from three or four renters. Just a few renters, in four years.
 
Some guy, a ‘Mendine,’ and a couple businesses.
 
It’s crazy.
 
They could have bought the place for less than what they paid in rent.”
 

He looked up the length of her body. Her shoulders were down, her body exuded a heaviness. “You sound disappointed.”

“It’s a bit of a let-down,” she admitted.
 
“I was wrong.
 
I guess I was just…wrong.”

“It happens.
 
You look pretty right to me.
 
But maybe that’s because you’re not wearing any clothes.”

She flushed.
 
She flushed a lot.
 
He liked it a lot.
 
“Well, I’m wearing a little….”
 

“Good point. Let’s do something about that.” He went back to running his hand up her leg.
 

She laughed.
 
Her head was tilted down, watching him.
 
All the beautiful, hard-carved lines of her face were still softened by yesterday’s sex.
 
Her pale cheeks were flushed and her hair shone as it fell like a black waterfall over her shoulders. He slid his open hands under the covers and flipped them off her impatiently.

More red panties. Lace.

Fuck.

Underneath Juliette’s cool, anonymous exterior was a fire.
 
She wore it every day, like a hidden flag.
 

“Do you have any other colors?” he asked.

“Well, I have a few bl—”

“Get rid of them,” he said, thumbing her through the hot red underwear.

“Oh, Johnny, do you really think…?” she whispered, her voice shaking, but her hips were already coming toward him.
 

He turned his head to the side and licked her thigh. Her eyelids dropped. “Lift your shirt,” he ordered in a rough voice.
 
Because it was pretty clear that being told what to do in bed turned Juliette on, and that suited Johnny just fine.

Her body gave a little tremble and she did as he’d said, slid a pale hand up her belly, dragging her tank top up with it, hot red against her white skin.

“Further.”
 

She pushed it up over her bare breasts, her eyes half-lidded and locked on him.
 

“Hold it there,” he rasped, and he leaned up to flick his tongue over one of her dark-red nipples. It ruched, got pebbly hard. Her head fell back against the headboard, her neck a curve of pale skin, her breasts pushed up for him. Fuck, he needed to touch everything,
now
.
 

“Touch yourself,” he ordered, swinging to his knees.

Her eyes flew open. “What?”
      “Finger yourself for me. I want to watch.”

“Oh
fuck
,” she whispered, and slid her hand down her belly, under the waistband of her panties, into the dark curls he could see shadowed under the lace, then she released a hot breath, let her head fall back, her mouth rounded, eyes closed.

Lust cracked through him like a whip.
 

He half rose, slid her down flat onto the bed, and bent over her.
 
He let her focus on her pussy and closed his mouth around the puckered nipple and sucked her in, hard. She gave a low moan of pleasure. He tugged her underwear down to mid-thigh and looked at her hand working her pussy up and down, two fingers, one atop the other, pushing into the soft, slippery V of her.
 

“Fuck,” he muttered.

She lifted her hips, trying to push her knees apart, and now he could watch her pale fingers in the hot pink flesh, pushing over her clit, fast, rhythmic strokes, harder, then softer. He watched and learned as her breath came faster, breaking on each pant. Each pump up, her fingers were slippery, her inner thighs glistening. He reached down and dragged an index finger through the wetness.

Her hips shot up, twisted. “Please, Johnny,” she whispered.

He slid two fingers up inside her, hard and fast. Her hips came up again.

“Don’t stop,” he said, and pushed again.

He could watch her all day. Her head back, long hair spilling down, holding up that tight red tank top with one hand, the fingers of her other hand wet with her own juices, her heavy-lidded eyes on him, panties down around her knees, his fingers deep inside her.
 

He slid down the bed on his stomach, then pushed up between her knees, her panties behind his head, and started tasting her.
 
Her body leapt to him, wet and luscious, opening as much as she could, with the underwear hooked around her knees, trapping her.
 
It kept his face pressed close to her pussy and he licked her deep, then sucked on the finger she was stroking her clit with.
 
He nudged it aside with his tongue and licked her directly.
 
She bent her knees and closed her thighs around his head, knotted her fingers in his hair, holding his face into her.
 

Growling, he pushed up, slid his body atop hers, pushing her underwear down to her ankles, then reached down and gripped his cock and plunged inside her in a single thrust.
 

“Oh, fuck, Johnny, please, Johnny,
fuck me,
” she crooned, her voice trailing off in a shudder.

Juliette’s sex-foul mouth was like music to him.
 

Their bodies were locked together, her knees clamped around his hips.
 
He grabbed her wrists and pushed them up over her head, pinning them to the bed.

Her eyes snapped open. “Johnny,” she whispered, and tugged on her wrists.
 

“What?”

“My hands.”

Their eyes were locked.
 
“You want me to let go?” he asked, not loosening his grip. Her hips came up to his.
 
“You scared?”
 
He pushed again and she flung her head back into the pillows. Something flashed in her eyes.
 

“Johnny.”

This might be the thing that snared him so deeply about Juliette, but then, maybe not. There seemed to be a lot of things about Juliette that got him. But hard as she was, bullet-hard and focused, she had a reservoir of vulnerability and passion inside her, and she revealed it on every breath. Her eyes and her voice revealed it.
 
Revealed her. Breathy with passion, disappointed with suspicions unfounded, frustrated with renters who overpaid—

He froze. “I know that name,” he said, staring at the headboard.

Juliette, laid out on the bed beneath him, her wrists trapped above her head, her thick wet heat encasing his cock, stared up dazedly.
 
“What?”

“I know the name of that renter, Mendine.”
 
He couldn’t help it; he pumped into her again.
 

Her hips rose to meet his. “Who? How?”

He moved again, a long, solid stroke.
 
“Roger Mendine.”

Her heavy-lidded, sex-infused eyes stared into his, then something flickered in them. She flung out an arm, feeling for the papers and laptop he’d shoved to the other side of the bed. Her hand banged the laptop and it re-engaged with a whirr as she grabbed a fistful of papers.
 

With Johnny still inside her, she pushed up on an elbow, twisting slightly to the side, and lifted the papers to read them. The angle was too tempting; he thrust forward again.

The arm she was propped up on wobbled. “Johnny, if you want me too look for this—”

He grabbed her knee and hooked it to his hip. “I want you to look and I want you to come. Can’t you do both?”

She laughed, her body flushed and shivering.
 
“Here it is. Mendine. An ‘
R. Mendine
.’
 
First payment four years ago, last one came in…about two years ago. Oh, God, Johnny,” she released the papers and dropped back onto the bed as he rocked into her again.

There was something insanely erotic about Juliette trying to do work while he fucked her. He put his head down and planted his palms beside her head, his hips moving in a hard, fast rhythm. She met him on every stride, her back arching, her hips coming up, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, hanging on, until she was almost suspended beneath him, belly to belly, breasts to his chest, and they came like that, so fast and hard and intense, so close to each other that there was nothing to shield the confusion in Johnny’s eyes when she kissed him, whispering, “Oh Johnny, what the hell are you doing to me…?”
 

Nothing to hide the tears in Juliette’s eyes when Johnny came deep inside her, calling out her name.

Chapter Thirteen

JULIETTE FELL back onto the bed like a pile of towels. She couldn’t have moved if the house had been burning down.
 
She didn’t know how to move anymore.
 
She wasn’t sure she could even blink.
 
She was just glad to still be breathing.

Johnny rolled off her and lay spread-eagled on the bed, breathing hard.
 
Maybe harder than her.
 
Of course, he’d worked a little harder than she had, one palm planted on the bed, the other around Juliette’s back to hold her up while she hung beneath him like a monkey.

“Well,” she said hoarsely.

“Damn,” he agreed.

She lay motionless for while longer, then, when her brain came back on, she rolled onto her belly and began picking through the papers from the judge. “Okay, so you say you know this Mendina character?”

He made a thinking, groan-y sound. “Mendine.”
 

“No, it’s Mendina….”

“I don’t know any Mendina. I know Mendine. Roger Mendine.”

“Oh.” Something didn’t jive. She stared at the papers from the judge, then grabbed for her laptop and looked at a few of the attachments Mrs. B had sent.
 
“Johnny, what is this?” she murmured.

His eyes opened.
 

She looked between the papers and laptop, back and forth. Then she sat up sharply.
 
The sheet slid down her back like ice shearing off. “Oh, no,” she said softly.
 
“Oh. No.”