The Other Man (4 page)

“All this needs is a bag over my head, and we’d have a perp walk,” I said, my wry tone spoiled by the fact that I couldn’t seem to breathe properly.
 

He liked that, I could hear it in his voice as he responded, “If this is a perp walk, I need to do a better job of patting you down.”
 
As he spoke, he shifted my wrists to one hand.

I sucked in a breath as his free hand moved to my collarbone.
 
I glanced down to watch as he slid it over my skin until it held my breast, watched it move with the rapid rise and fall of my chest.
 
He ran a rough thumb over my nipple.
 

“You’re trembling,” he rasped into my ear, making me tremble all the more.
 
“Fear or excitement?”
 

I licked my lips and gave him the truth.
 
“Both.”
   

“Are you wet?” he asked, hand snaking down my body, pushing into the waistband of my pants and going unerringly, aggressively, for my sex.

“Yes,” I gasped, though he’d already answered his own question, his fingers rubbing over my slick folds.
 

“You don’t normally do things like this, do you?”

“Bring strange men home and lead them to my bedroom?
 
Um,
no
.
 
This is not a habit of mine.”

“I’ll be sure to make it worth your while, then.”
 

Somehow, impossibly, I believed that he would.
 

CHAPTER
 

FOUR

Abruptly, he released my wrists, and I turned to look at him.
 

He backed away, one step, and then another, his eyes on my breasts as his hands went to the bottom of his T-shirt.
 
He shrugged it off, the material straining to the point I thought it’d rip as he dragged it off his shoulders.
 

I sucked in a shocked breath as I took in the hard flesh he’d exposed.
 

Scars were painted all across his granite torso.
 
I don’t know why, I think it may have been his face, which was so handsome and young, and unscarred, but those markings caught me completely off guard.
 
They were all shapes and sizes, ranging from several little round ones (two of which were still fresh and pink) to long jagged cuts, the worst being a particularly big one that drew up along his side in a way that made it look like someone had literally tried to gut him with a knife.

Somehow, I knew not to ask him the first question that popped into my head, which was,
What happened to you?
 

Instead I studied him for a long time, his cold eyes on me, his jaw held hard as he studied me back.
 
Finally I settled for, “You’ve been shot recently.”
 
It was an understatement.
 
He’d been shot many times, and knifed, and if I had to guess what some of those marks were, he’d even been branded and burned.
 

Tortured, I realized.
 

This man, who was much younger than I was, had been brutally tortured.
 
Repeatedly.
 

Something inside of me, my strong maternal side I was sure, went soft for him.
 

“Yes, I’ve been shot a time or two,” he grumbled out, sounding pissed.
 
“Is that a problem?”
 

I shook my head, even while I wondered if it was.
 
Was he a criminal?
 
He didn’t strike me as a cop, so what was the alternative?
 

He seemed to see something in my face, utter shock perhaps, that had him reassuring me in a soft tone I’d never heard him use before, but I loved it and craved more as soon as I heard it.
 
“I’ve lived a violent life.
 
But, Lourdes, listen very carefully, because this is a promise:
 
I’d never hurt
you
.
 
Okay?”
 

I nodded jerkily.
 

“Aside from rough sex, that is,” he felt the need to add.
 

I licked my lips and nodded again.
 

“Very rough,” he continued.
 
“But you won’t mind that.
 
In fact, unless my instincts are wrong about you, soon you’ll be
begging
me for it.”
 
As he spoke, he reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a handful of condoms, of the magnum variety.

He was pushing his sweatpants down impatiently when he said, “Get on the bed.
 
On your back.
 
Arms above your head.”

I went liquid even as I managed to comply.
 

He tossed the condoms on the bed by my hip, leaning over me, arms bracing on either side of my ribs, eyes running over my body.
 

He bit his lip appealingly, blinking languorously.
 
“Your body . . . “ he began and trailed off.
 

He shut his eyes, shook his head, and when he opened them again, whatever had come over him, whatever he’d been about to say, seemed to have passed.
 

I didn’t worry about it for long as his hands flew to the waistband of my pants and started pulling, dragging my sweats and panties down at the same time, taking my socks off as well when he reached my ankles.
 

He became preoccupied for a moment when he’d freed me from my bottoms.
 
I squirmed a bit as he separated my lacy panties from my sweats, studying them.
 

He held up the tiny scrap of material, arching a brow at me.
 
“This is what you wear under
sweats
?”
 

I just nodded.
 
I didn’t want to talk about my underwear or anything else, really.
 
Action was required.
 
Words?
 
Not so much.
 

He shook his head, and, as though that settled the matter, he tossed my panties over his shoulder, eyes moving back to my body.
 

“Spread your legs,” he said gruffly.
 

I did it, eyes on his cock, wondering how much longer I’d have to wait before I had
that
inside of me.
 

He let out a small string of curses, but that didn’t make me stiffen.
 
On the contrary, it made me melt, each profanity washing over me, because I knew that he was only perturbed because he wanted me.
 

To the degree that I wanted him.
 
And that was saying something.
 

“Any requests before we do this?” he asked.
 
“I’ll warn you now, there’ll be no stopping once I start.”
 
As he said this, his eyes moved up my body to devour my chest, taking in my full, straining breasts.
 

I took them in too, looking down at myself, watching in fascination as my back arched, erect nipples seeking him.

I licked my lower lip, watching how every tiny movement I made seemed to capture him.
 
“Another kiss would be nice,” I said softly.
 

His nostrils flared, and he moved to climb on top of me, straddling my hips, his hands holding my wrists firmly above my head.
 

He bent his face to mine, angling his head as he took my lips.
 

His kiss was different this time, more like what I’d expected from the first kiss, his tongue demanding, invading, greedy, like he couldn’t get enough, like he wanted to devour me.
 

I gave him everything he asked for, lips surrendering, body submitting, my hips bucking in reflexive anticipation.

I moaned out a protest when he took his mouth away, but not for long as it stayed attached to my body, moving down along my jaw, then to my neck, licking, sucking, biting as it went.
 

When his hot mouth reached my breasts, it was like a voltage of electricity to my chest, my back bowing, teeth gritting as he licked and sucked, pushing the ripe globes together to nuzzle from one to the other, then fastening like a suction to my nipple.

I could’ve gotten off just from the sound of his mouth feasting hungrily on my flesh, I was
that
primed.

Luckily, he was just as primed, and so it didn’t come to that.
 
There wasn’t time.
 

Foreplay was not the order of the day.

This was about fucking.
 
It was that simple.
 
His cock inside of my cunt, the faster the better.
   

He tore his mouth away from my skin and reached for a condom.
 
He ripped the foil on the packet with one hand and his teeth, keeping my wrists captive all the while.
 
He even rolled it on one-handed, which was rather impressive considering the size of him.
 

Practice made perfect, I supposed.
 
And I tried to linger on
that
as little as possible.

He moved down my body, shoving my legs wide apart to accommodate his hips, and lined us up, breast to groin.
 

I craned my neck forward to watch as his tip found my entrance, and he nudged in that first delicious inch.
 

It’s been way too fucking long,
I thought to myself.
 

And that was my last coherent thought for a very long time.

He shoved in, slowly at first, shifting his hips to work himself against my soft flesh.
 
I heard the noises that left my throat as though they were coming out of somebody else as my soft flesh welcomed him inch by slow inch.
 

It took forever for him to push inside of me, but I wouldn’t have rushed that part if I could, watching as each delicious centimeter of his shaft disappeared into my sex.
 

I clenched around him, my cunt sucking him in so earnestly and intensely that he cursed and praised me in equal parts every second that he progressed.
   

It was a shock as he finally, at last,
about fucking tim
e, shoved fully into me, buried to the root.
 

The air punched hard out of my lungs at the brutal impact as he hit home.

I’d never been so full.
 
That was a fact.
 

I took in this new foreign fullness with great heaving breaths that brought my sensitive chest up to rub against his slick hard one, then drop down and away again with each rough inhale, exhale.
   

“What in the
holy fuck
,” he muttered succinctly.

I wasn’t sure if that was a question or a statement, but regardless, I had nothing to add.
 
That summed it up for me, as well.
 

And then,
then, oh my God, then,
he started to move, dragging out of me with big, jagged pulls, it taking a few of those pulls to have only the tip of him inside of me again.
 

He paused briefly there, at just the point where I felt so helpless that I lost it.
 

Just lost it.
 
Sobbing, pleading, begging him to move, to come back inside of me, to fill me up entirely.

And he was no sadist, thank God.
 
He obliged right away, ramming back in with one long heave, then yanking out again, faster now, smoother with every movement as my body learned to accommodate his size, accepting the length and girth of him like it’d been made for just this purpose.

There was something so simple and profound about that first mating.
 
He occupied an empty place inside of me, literally and figuratively, a lonely space that I hadn’t known needed filling.
 

It was beautiful and riveting.
 
I didn’t want it to end, but had to fight not to finish too quickly.
   

He drove into me, again and again, his thrusts rough to the point of brutal.
 

I’d never been into rough sex.
 

Well, I’d never tried it, but I hadn’t thought I was into it.
 

I’d thought
wrong
.
 

How could I be so wrong about myself?
 
How could I not know about a need like that until it was given to me in its entirety?
 

And that need,
that need
, it swallowed me whole.
   

I needed this like I needed air.
 
Needed someone to fill me so acutely, so completely, mercilessly invading me, over and over, pounding me into the mattress, taking absolute, indisputable ownership of my body until I couldn’t say where he began and I ended.
     

Needed it so much, I couldn’t stop begging for it.
 

Loudly.
 

Repeatedly.
 

And he gave it to me, everything I begged for and more, rutting into me with mindless abandon, pounding in and out, in and out, faster and faster, harder, and still, impossibly,
harder
, until screaming, I burst.
 

My orgasm didn’t just surprise me.
 
It
assaulted
me.
 
Tore through me and broke me into a million twitching pieces.
 

One big hand clawing at my hips, he pumped into me four, five more times, then planted himself deep, to the root and came.

I watched as the chill at last left his eyes.
 
So many things rushed in to replace that consuming coldness of his.
 

Wonderful things.
 

Addictive things that let me know somewhere deep down he was as affected as I was.

Hunger.
 
Admiration.
 
Desperation.
 
Lust.
 
Wonder.
 
Need.
 
Abandon.
 
Madness.