Reece
I awake as Kate pads softly through the room, heading to the toilet probably. I glance at the clock on the nightstand, the glowing red digits telling me it is four in the morning.
After a good ten minutes, I realize she hasn’t nipped to the toilet and I wonder if she’s okay. I strain to listen and can hear her downstairs. The house is safe, I checked it all, so maybe she couldn’t sleep and is reading or something. I leave it another ten minutes or so, then decide to go check just in case.
Throwing the covers back, I rummage on the floor for my sweatpants and pull them on. At night I keep my boxers on, and as they are silk boxers and long-ish on my body they aren’t revealing at all. I don’t wear them for any other reason than I like the silk and the comfort, but I’ve had a few women comment on them as if I wear them to be some a Lothario. I don’t think a person’s choice of underpants make them a Lothario…or not.
Being quiet, I head down the stairs. The sound of something clanging in the kitchen has me veering in that direction. I turn the corner and stop in my tracks.
Kate is wearing only pajama shorts and a strappy top, and she’s got headphones in and her phone peeking out of a pocket in the side of her short-shorts. She must have some music playing as she’s swaying to a rhythm only she can hear. I take a moment to appreciate her arse, it’s gorgeous. She’s soft in all the right places, with long toned legs, a curvy arse and hips, and a nice, nipped in waist. She holds her injured foot raised slightly off the floor, which gives an oddly titillating tilt to her hips.
I get the irrational urge to walk up behind her and put my arms around her, pulling her into me and swaying in time with her. I’m shocked to find myself getting hard, and force myself to think about horrible things for a moment. No way can I go there here and now.
Why not? A dangerous little voice whispers to me. Liam did. Fucking hell, Liam took one look at Abi on camera and something insane happened. The hardnosed warrior, the only one of my brothers I truly feared, fell in love at first sight. I’m not in love.
Am I even in lust? I’ve had the odd thought about how Kate is attractive, different. She’s got a lively mind, a pretty face, and a nice figure. She’s not a bombshell, but she’s…earthy. Sexy in an understated way.
Her hips sway side to side, and I watch, mesmerized. I don’t know why, but if someone had told me Kate danced like sin itself, I’d have not believed it. She’s bookish, organized, capable, and smart, but as she moves sinuously to the beat, I realize she’s also deeply sensual.
A smell hits me, and it’s all the good things. Sugar, cinnamon, eggs. The comforting smells of baking. Mum used to bake every Sunday and I used to get to lick the bowl out. A flash of me doing it now, using my fingers to scrape out whatever is in that bowl and then wiping it on Kate’s shoulder before licking it from her tan skin, hits me.
Holy fuck. I growl to myself. I need to get my head back in the game. Kate must have her music on quiet, because she whips around.
She puts her hand on her chest and takes a sharp breath in. “Shit, Reece. You scared me.” She pulls the earbuds from her ears.
Her eyes narrow. “How long have you been standing there?” Then she flushes adorably, something I’ve not seen her do before.
“A second. I heard a noise.” I indicate the baking equipment on the counter. I want to take her mind off me seeing her dancing as I don’t want to embarrass her.
She turns and nods but doesn’t smile. “I couldn’t sleep. I bake sometimes…if I’m stressed.”
“Why are you stressed?” I want to gobble the words back up as soon as I say them. Stupid fucking question.
She gives a harsh laugh. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m on the run from my stalker…again. He wrecked my life. His timing was perfect the first time. He found me when I felt ready to get back out there.” She waves a plastic utensil around toward the blind covered window. “Date again after having my heart smashed to bits, but then fuckface found me.”
Her words are angry, but with a soft, slurred edge. She turns to the counter and takes a sip of something, and I realize she’s drinking.
“All my friends are married, or loved up. Some have kids, the ones that don’t have a life-partner, or a dog, or even a fucking cat. I daren’t even get a cat in case that sick bastard hurts it. How pathetic is that? I don’t even own a cat.”
Another sip. The liquid is clear, and unless she’s taken to drinking neat gin, she’s on the vodka. Not good. I’m glad I came down now, she’s likely to put whatever she’s making in the oven and forget all about it.
“So now, I’m alone.” She looks away from me and mutters under her breath. “Washed up and all alone.”
“Washed up?”
“Yeah. Washed up. Men don’t want to settle down with a woman my age. My friend, she’s divorced, she’s been dating for a few months. Says the only guys that show any interest are either in their twenties and wanting hook ups with a hot MILF, or in their late fifties. She’s forty-one, Reece, and other guys in their forties act as if she’s ancient. They’re all chasing women in their twenties.”
“Well, they’re idiots then.” I mean it, too. Age doesn’t matter to me. If someone’s attractive, they’re attractive.
“Oh, idiots.” She turns her heated gaze fully on me. She seems almost angry at me, which makes no sense. I’ve done nothing to her.
“Like your friends?” She asks.
I frown. “What?”
“Your friends. All men in their late thirties or even forties, I’d guess from looking at them, and they are all with much younger women, you said so yourself. Look at Ethan and Isla.” She gives a derisive snort. “Men want some naïve, young woman to gawp at them in wonder and make them feel like the big hero.”
I laugh at that, because her words make me think of Cara. Brittle, intelligent, no nonsense Cara. I can’t imagine she stares at Luka like he’s some big bad, hero.
“Laugh all you want, it’s true.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Kate. But it isn’t true. You don’t know fuck all about my friends. Maybe with Ethan, he fell for Isla in the way you’re saying, but the other guys, their relationships are nothing like you say. And don’t shit talk my friends.”
“Oh, sod off.”
She goes to push past me, and her shove is so rough I stumble back, taken by surprise and my butt hits up against the wood of the butcher’s block.
She grabs the vodka bottle as she swings by me, and I grab her wrist, halting her.
“Let me go,” she spits the words out, and I swear to God I’m hanging onto my patience by a thread.
“Leave the vodka,” I tell her, voice low.
“You are here as my employee, to guard me. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Actually, my job is to keep you safe. A drink is fine, getting so fucked up you can’t react if we need to move, isn’t. You take the vodka, I leave. I can’t protect you if you’re shitfaced.”
“Oh, fine. Walk away. It’s what all men do anyway.”
I lose my patience. I’m a laid-back guy, but as my sister always says, I’ve got a slow burn temper, but once I lose it, I lose it.
“You’re a mess,” I tell her harshly, grabbing the bottle out of her hand as it swings in the air, still holding her other wrist. “I respected you. I thought you were one of the smartest, bravest women…hell, people, I’ve met, but this self-pitying shit is not a good look on you.”
“Oh, excuse me for being upset at the horror show that is my life. Now.” She pokes me hard in the chest. “Let go of my arm.”
Yanking herself away from me, she puts her full weight on her injured foot, lets out a cry and stumbles to the side, hitting her hip on the corner of the block. Only my hold on her wrist stops her from going down to the floor.
Fed up of this, I pull her to me. Her warm body colliding with mine is a shock, one I ignore as I hoist her into my arms.
“What are you doing?” she demands.
I grin at her haughty tone.
“Putting you to bed.”
“But…my cupcakes.”
“You’ll have to make cupcakes tomorrow, cupcake. When you’re not inebriated enough to burn the house down.”
“As if,” she snorts. Then drops her head to my shoulder. “You smell nice.”
Her breath tickles my neck and I try to hold onto my libido as I march up the stairs and through the room I’m sleeping in. I put her on the bed and she looks up at me, smiling, soft and lopsided.
“I see we’ve gone through the angry stage, right by the self-pity stage, and now we’re at the…what is this stage?” I ask her, amused at the floppy way she rolls onto the bed.
“I don’t know.” She turns and looks up at me from under her lashes. “Maybe this is the horny stage.”
Her words take the air out of my lungs. She rolls to her side, and her breasts follow the movement, creating an impressive cleavage in her strappy top as she lays on her right side watching me.
She reaches a hand out and trails a finger up my thigh. “Why don’t you join me?”
I think she’s trying to be coquettish but failing miserably and heading straight to, I’m going to throw up in five minutes, with the way her words slur.
“Cupcake. You’re in no fit state for any shenanigans.”
“Oh, really? I think I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Go to sleep, Kate.” I gently remove her hand from my thigh.
“Ah, of course.”
Her face hardens. Oh, great. The anger phase is back.
“I’m far too old and worldly wise to tempt you, aren’t I? Sorry about that, but hey.” She sits up, keeling to one side alarmingly, so I put a hand out to steady her. “I’m practically a virgin though. Honestly, not had sex in so long, I bet it’s healed over by now.”
Then she starts singing Like a Virgin. I can only stare at her. Who is this crazy person and what has she done with Kate.
“Oh,” she says suddenly, mouth turned down. “I feel sick.”
Fucking marvelous.
“Come on.” I help her up and take her to the bathroom. “Do you have anything to tie your hair back?” I ask.
“In the cabinet.” She nods toward it as she steadies herself by grabbing the towel rail. “Oh, Lord, I feel so sick.”
“Yeah, you’re about to pay for swigging half a bottle of vodka in like, thirty minutes flat.”
I find the band and pull her silky hair into a ponytail. She stands still and meekly lets me. Something about this position, this action, me behind her, pulling her hair up and back, arouses me.
Maybe it’s some ancient, primeval instinct, but it’s a dominant position, and for someone so in control as Kate usually is, the way she lets me do it gets me hard.
She’s about to barf though, and my libido won’t like that.
Sure enough, she groans, bends over the toilet and throws up. I try to soothe her by rubbing her back. She throws up twice more and sinks to the floor, head hanging over the bowl.
“I’m going to make you a coffee. Then I’ll get you in the shower,” I tell her.
I don’t need this. If her stalker decided to do something dramatic right the fuck now, we’re both sitting ducks. I need to get her sober, and then I’ll read her the riot act. A glass of wine, max, from now on for her.
I head down the stairs and make her a coffee, strong and big in a large cup. I also grab a Snickers bar. I doubt she’ll want it but the sugar will help.
Heading back up the stairs, I walk into the bathroom to find her brushing her teeth, and she’s crying. Oh, fuck. Crying women are like my kryptonite. I can’t stand it.
“Hey.” I keep my voice gentle. “I brought you some coffee.”
“I feel such a fucking idiot.” She’s still a bit slurred but throwing her guts up seems to have helped a little.
She drank so fast it hasn’t probably been metabolized yet or some shit. I’m not a doctor, but I’m sure she’s sobered some because she’s thrown most of what she drank up.
“Here.” I thrust the coffee at her once she’s done and rinsed and spit.
“Ugh. After brushing my teeth?”
“It will help. Trust me. Coffee, sugar.” I wave the Snickers bar. “Then a shower.”
“Can’t I go to bed and pretend this never happened?”
“We’ll do the pretending thing in the morning, cupcake. I need you sober. More sober, at least.”
“Okay.”
She takes the coffee and sips it with a grimace.
“You okay to take a cool shower?” I ask.
“Yes.”
She’s meek now. Like a child who had a tantrum and is starting to regret it.
I leave her alone to her shower and go to the room I’ve been sleeping in. I take my jogging bottoms off and lie on top of the cover for a moment, letting myself cool down.
I hope to God she doesn’t remember most of this to be honest. We’d been getting along well, I liked her, and felt comfortable in her company. This could make things awkward, and I’m more than happy to forget it and move on. She’s clearly got issues. That stuff about men not liking older women, and being alone for so long. The stuff she said about not having sex in ages, too. I wonder how long it’s been for her.
The image of her rolling onto her side, her full breasts pillowing as she did so. She’s fucking sexy. Yeah, she might not be all overly made up, with big hair, and skin-tight clothes, but she’s sexy. So why so long without any sex? Without a lover?
The shower thunders and I hope she’s feeling better. My dick is hard, and I half want to go in there and join her. Soap her up, make her feel good. I wish I didn’t know she’s feeling lonely…horny.
Christ. I glance at the door. Its half closed, and the shower is still pounding away. Knowing it’s every kind of wrong but not caring, I snake my hand into my boxers and touch my aching dick. I let my eyes drift closed as I imagine myself walking into the bathroom, seeing Kate under the shower, naked, needy.
I begin to stroke myself, feeling perverted almost. It’s so taboo, doing this while she’s in the shower, and I’m supposed to be working for her. Protecting her. If I don’t take the edge off though, I’ll get no sleep.
In a shockingly short time, I can feel myself on the edge of coming. Not wanting to make a mess all over the bed, or my boxers, I grab a tissue and groan as I come and come into the rough paper.
Shit. My head spins as I come down. What the hell?
I haven’t come so hard in a long time. And it was all to thoughts of sexing up my client. Wrong, on every damn level. You could say what Liam did with Abi was wrong. Well, let’s be honest, it was wrong. But at least he wasn’t working for her. Doing anything about this attraction with Kate could fuck up the reputation of our company if it ever got out.
Maybe I should call Ethan and ask him to swap places with me?
Isla would love me for that. I roll my eyes and put my arm over my head as the shower turns off.
A few minutes later, Kate walks into the room.
“How do you feel?” I look at her assessing. She seems soberer now, but she’ll need to sleep it off, and she’ll feel like crap in the morning.
“Tired. Still a bit sick. Embarrassed.”
“No need to be embarrassed,” I tell her. I mean it, too. If she only knew what I’d just done. I’m the one who should be ashamed here.
“I’m going to go and sleep it off,” she says sheepishly. “Night, Reece.”
Her smoky voice wraps around me, swirling over my dick as sure as if she’d trailed her fingers over me.
“Night, cupcake.”
She shakes her head, but her mouth twitches a little at the corners.
The next morning I’m up way before Kate. I’ve had a bad night’s sleep. I had two dirty dreams. Two. Both featuring Kate, and now I’m horny and tired, which is a shitty combination. I’ve cleaned away the epic mess she left in the kitchen and am drinking coffee and trying to control my thoughts.
I tell myself my attraction to Kate is only natural. I’ve got a high libido. I’m a bit of a whore, truth be told, and I’m in a period of enforced celibacy. Any attractive woman would probably start to get to me, and I need to brush this shit off and get back to my job. Keeping her safe.
I want to know more about what she told me last night, too. Because I’ve had an interesting phone call this morning. My friend, who I gave the details of the case to, along with the letters from Stalker Boy, called. He’s got a bit of a thing it seems for women who haven’t been in a relationship for a long time. It seems his victims all fit a pattern of being single. I have sent this new info to Maggie, Liam, and the boys I work with. Maggie is a psychologist and a good friend of Luka’s partner, Cara. She’ll be a damn good person to look over our perp’s file. I want them working on this, too.
Footsteps on the stairs alert me to Kate being up and about.
She looks fine, but sheepish. She’s wearing a long skirt, down to her ankles, and a strappy top.
“Morning.” I make my voice normal, not over bright or any of that shit.
“Morning.” Her sleep roughened voice is like raw silk against my skin.
“Coffee?” I hold the pot up, and she gives me a nod.
“Reece, about last night—”
I hold my hand up. “No need to say anything, it’s fine.”
“I sexually harassed you.” She puts her head in her hands.
She did? When?
“I tried to seduce you, touched your thigh. I’m so sorry.”
I laugh then, a genuine laugh. “Cupcake, you don’t have to be sorry.” I get serious then. “But you do have to promise me not to do that again. The drinking I mean.” I almost tell her she can touch my thigh anytime, but bite it back. “I can’t keep you safe if something happens and you’re so drunk you can’t get with the programme.”
“I know.” She sits at the kitchen counter and hangs her head. “I’m so mortified. I wish I’d gotten so drunk I can’t remember anything.”
“Well, I need to ask you about something you said.”
“Oh…marvelous.” Her words are harsh, but her tone is soft, and she’s smiling a little.
“Last night, you said you hadn’t had a relationship in ages, and you were starting to think about getting back out there when Stalker Boy popped up.”
“Yeah. That’s true.”
“How long were you single before he left his first note?”
She frowns. “A long time. Four years or so. I had my heart broken. I…”
“Go on. I know it’s hard to talk about, but it might be important. It seems our freak only likes women who have been single a long time.”
“Really?” She turns suddenly wide-awake eyes to focus on me.
I nod. “I sent his letters from you to my contact in intelligence. Her name is Dr. Rhodes. She got intrigued with some of the things he’d said, so she looked into previous cases and ended up contacting some of his other victims. They, too, provided letters they’d been sent, some of course are with the police, so she couldn’t see those. He mentions things about these women not having had a man for ages in his letters, all the women she spoke to had been single for a long time before being stalked.”
“Okay. Well, if it will help catch him.” She sighs and sits up straighter. “I was in a long-term relationship. We were engaged. I thought he was the love of my life. We had postponed our wedding because I got pregnant.” She looks down at the floor for a moment before carrying on. Not looking at me again. “I was over four months on when I lost the baby. It tore me apart, and he wasn’t there for me. He went cold, insulated. About six months later I found a text message from a work colleague on his phone that made it quite clear they’d been having an affair. I was devastated. I mean…devastated.” She looks at me. “People use that word lightly, but my world was blown apart. I felt as if I’d lost everything.”
“So, you ended it?” I ask, hating pushing her on this but needing to know.
“No. We went for counselling, but it didn’t work. He carried on seeing the other woman and lying to me. We split, and I was alone for four years before the notes and flowers and other stuff started.”
I think about what she’s told me. Maybe this freak followed her from when she was newly single? Perhaps he worked at the hospital? I need to see if the other women had health issues, or even lost babies. But if so…why wait four years? It makes no sense. Unless…
“Did you do anything different before you got the first note?” I ask her. “You said you were thinking of getting back out there.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t get the chance.” Then her face clouds a little. “Oh, except one thing. I went on a speed dating night with a friend, but I didn’t meet anyone there. Could that be important?”
“Anything can be important,” I tell her.
I’m starting to feel like we have some a lead on this guy for the first time. Maybe he’s seen these women at the hospital, worked in maternity care? Or perhaps in couple’s therapy? We’ll need to look into the other victim’s backgrounds. Or maybe he finds them during the speed dating, if they all did that?
He likes women who haven’t been in a relationship in a long time. It makes sense that women at a speed dating event would be dipping their toe into the pool again after a while single, or…after ages being single trying it as a new tactic.
“This is good stuff,” I tell her.
“Okay.” She smiles at me but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
I can see it then, for a brief moment. The pain she went through, still does, the way it hollowed her out. I’m impressed with how she built her life back up. How even after so much heartbreak, she carried on battling when this sick fuck came into her life and made everything worse. Took someone already given more than their fair share of shit, and piled even more on top.
I admire her. I admire the fuck out of her. She’s strong.
She shows me how much so by her next words. “Look, Reece. I am truly sorry about last night. I’m a staunch feminist and I’d be disgusted if some man acted the way I did. You don’t need some lecherous old woman making you all embarrassed when you’re trying to do your job. There’s nothing worse than being repeatedly hit on by someone you don’t find attractive. Thanks for being a gent about it.”
She’s not fishing for compliments or goading me. It’s sincere and straight to the point and she genuinely seems to see herself as some over the hill old woman.
She stands, turns to go and walks out of the room and I can’t let it go.
Fuck me, I should.
I ought to let her walk out believing I don’t find her attractive. It wouldn’t do any harm. There’s no self-pity in her words, she’ll accept it, suck it up and move on as she has from all the other blows in her life. But I can’t let her.
She is attractive to me and I don’t like the way she thinks she’s old or something. Hell, she’s not old. Maybe the shit she’s gone through makes her feel as if she is some days and I can identify.
“Kate.” She stops, doesn’t turn around, but stops. “I do find you attractive.”
She does turn then and gives me a small smile. “Reece, it’s okay. You don’t need to tend my ego. I’m a big girl and I know a gorgeous hunk like you must have glamazons throwing themselves at his feet regularly. I’m fine with it. I’m not fine with my behavior last night. It’s so mortifying. I’ve never done anything like it. I think the pity party with the vodka and the baking was a bad idea, and I got out of control. I never do that.”
Her words hit me. She doesn’t, does she? From what I understand about her, she never gets to let go.
I learned from Gina that Kate’s home in the Highlands is like Fort Knox. She plans each trip out of her front door with military precision. Always on her guard. Never able to simply relax and be. Christ. I’ve been in that situation for weeks on end when on patrol. Once, for more than a month. It takes its toll. Wrings you out. But at least, most of the time for myself, I had my team with me. She has no one. And this hasn’t gone on for weeks, or months. A mission, with a defined end. This is her life.
“You should get to let go and relax sometimes,” I tell her. “You’ll go crazy otherwise. It’s just…while we’re so sure he’s back on your tail, I can’t risk you being too incapacitated to react quickly if need be. I’m making you a promise though, when I catch this fucker—and I’m going to make it my personal mission in life to do so—you’ll get to get so drunk you can’t stand up. For a week if you want to.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “Okay then, or go skydiving, or however you want to blow off steam.”
“No,” she says. “I don’t mean why should I get drunk, I mean why is it going to be your personal mission in life to get him? Other than guarding me now, this isn’t your fight.”
“Because I don’t think he should get to do this,” I say. It’s the truth. This piece of shit should not get to ruin her life, and the lives of countless other women. Turn them into prisoners, or worse, soldiers in a never-ending one-woman war against an invisible enemy.
“Really?” She takes a step toward me, slow and cautious. “You’re actually going to try and get this guy. Not for a short while, but truly try to find him and not give up when it doesn’t turn out to be a piece of cake like the police did?”
“I’m going to do everything I can to find him. I’m going to use all the connections I have and try so fucking hard to find him. And when I do, I’m going to use every connection I have to make sure he never does this again. Don’t ask me what that means as I can’t tell you, and you don’t want to know.”
“I don’t care what it means.” She juts her chin and there’s real fire in her eyes. “If that makes me a bad person, so be it. He’s a stain on humanity.”
She holds her head up, that regal air I’d first seen in her on full display, but her eyes turn too bright, and then liquid fills them. Chewing on her cheek, she turns away and hastens out of the room.
Again, I should leave well alone, but I can’t. I follow her, and find her holding onto the bottom of the bannister, head hung, body shaking.
“Hey.” I tip her chin up, looking at the tears tracking down her cheeks. “It’s okay to cry. You’ve been through hell.”
She starts to shake her head, but more tears spill out. The way she’s looking at me. It’s as if she’s been torn apart, blown open, the winds of sorrow and loss howling through her for me to see, visceral and real.
Something twinges in my chest, an odd, unfamiliar sensation. I want to make the hurt stop. To take away the tears. Maybe I’ve got a newly developed saviour complex, I don’t know, but I suddenly want to do something to stop this gorgeous woman in front of me from hurting.
So…I do something.
It’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason. When we’re cornered, afraid, hurting, humans turn to comfort. And you put two attractive humans near and that comfort can all too often turn sexual in nature. Why else do baby booms occur during wartime? Danger, loss, sorrow—they all remind us of how fleeting and fragile life is and they create that primeval urge to procreate, to merge with someone else.
I step closer and she doesn’t move away, instead she stares up at me, so still I don’t think she’s even breathing. Leaning in, I kiss her, once, on the mouth.
Soft, lips closed, it’s almost chaste. Almost but not quite. She sighs, parts her lips and simply sighs, and the way her full mouth falls open and she draws air in is the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen.
Not thinking about how wrong this is, not stopping to consider all the ways I’m about to step over the bounds of my role, I pull her into me, one arm around her waist. She comes willingly, her body pliant. It’s surprises me how easily she follows my physical instructions. I’d have thought she’d be more rigid. She’s a control freak, and I get why, but I didn’t think she’d let go in this way.
“Take me upstairs,” she whispers in my ear, before rising up on her toes to kiss me again.
This time, I don’t keep it chaste. I swipe my tongue across her lips and she opens for me. I groan as I taste her. It’s odd but the moment I start to kiss her, my simmering attraction heightens a whole lot and becomes something more like a flame. I’ve not experienced this before. I’ve had it where a woman I thought was sex on legs turned out to be a disappointment in the sack, or where someone I thought I had great chemistry with ended up being an okay lay and nothing more.
But this? I honestly didn’t know it could go this way. That you can find someone attractive, but then the moment you touched, it can become something so much more.
“Reece.” Her voice breaks through the haze of lust wrapped around me, pulling me out of being lost in my thoughts and the taste of her. Bringing me back to the present. “Take me upstairs.”
I don’t hesitate. I pick her up, like I did at the beach, and she wraps her arms around me. She’s warm and soft in my hold, and I like her being here this way. Pliant, trusting.
Something huge occurs to me. Shit, she’s trusting me.
With this.
It’s got to be a massive step for her to do so. A woman who’s not had sex in forever, and who has been targeted by a sexually sadistic stalker.
I vow to myself then to make it good for her. To live up to the regard she’s placed in me.
We reach the bedroom, and I don’t go into the smaller room at the back where she’s staying, but place her on the bed in the room I’m in. It’s a king, nice size and I want to be able to explore her. I climb on next to her and trail my fingers up her arm. I don’t want to scare her or worry her, so I’m gentle, as if I’m stroking a doe not a woman.
At first, she’s tense, but as I continue feather light strokes up her arm, she relaxes into my touch. Soon, she’s pressing up against me and reaching for me. I let her take the lead of this kiss, and it’s glorious. The way she explores my mouth, unsure, but greedy at the same time, has me rock hard.
Her hands come around my front to land on my chest. She feels me there, letting her palms map out the muscles of my pecs and then down over the ridges of my belly. It’s torture the way I can feel her through the thin cotton of my t-shirt. Good but not nearly enough.
“You’re so big,” she breathes at me.
“You’re so sexy,” I tell her back.
She laughs, soft. I like that about her, the way she laughs not giggles. It’s seductive. Like her smoke and whisky voice, and her multi-shaded hair.
Her scent wraps itself around me. Not fresh, but something warm and inviting, vanilla I think, but I don’t know. It suits her.
I skim my hands over her hip, down her leg, right to her ankle, where I take the material with me when I start to move it back up. Kate has great legs, long and toned and tan. They’re strong, like her. As I reach her hip, and the band of her underwear, she gives a small sound and I’m not sure what it means. I look forward to learning her reactions, her noises. Cataloguing them and being able to use them to guide me so I can make her crazy.
Palming her butt cheek, and loving the fullness, I pull her into me, against my erection. She grinds against me and starts to kiss me again. I want her clothes off, mine too. I stand and pull my t-shirt over my head before gesturing for her to sit up. I take her strappy top off and am shocked when her full breasts fall out of the material. She’s not wearing a bra and her tits are pert. Full, and ripe, and fucking perfect.
I bend my head to one dusky, rose colored nipple and suck it into my mouth. We’re all over one another now. Her arms sliding up and down my back, my hands on her waist, mouth at her breast. I keep thinking how I ought to slow down, but don’t seem able to put the brakes on. She’s the same. Her fingers find my jeans and unbutton them, and then she’s pushing her skirt off. I stand to get my jeans down, and climb back onto the bed.
Instead of lying by her side as I had before, I gently get on top of her, holding my weight. I lower my head to hers and kiss her, reveling in the feeling of skin on skin. I want more so I press myself closer to her, still making sure not to drop my full weight on her.
At first, she’s ultra-responsive, she’s kissing me back, moving her body against mine as we practically dry hump one another, but then something happens. I sense her tense, change. Then she’s thrashing about, but not in an oh-you’re-such-a-great-lover way. More, she’s signaling for me to get the fuck off her.
I pull myself up, holding my weight on my outstretched arms and look at her bracketed below me. Her eyes are wide and…crap, they’re scared. She’s breathing hard, and she scoots out from under me, standing from the bed. She backs up against the wall, arms over her breasts.
Shit. For a moment, I don’t know what the fuck to do. This has never happened to me before.
“Listen,” I stand to tell her it’s okay, we can stop this right now, but she makes a whimper and presses back into the wall.
“Shit, Kate. Listen to me.” I reach an arm out then pull it back. Yeah, touching her right now isn’t a good idea. “We can stop this. It’s okay.
She shakes her head, and she looks angry. I don’t know what she wants.
“God, I hate this!” She hits her head on the wall behind her and I wince. “He has taken over all aspects of my life, and now even this. He wins. He always wins. I want you.” She looks at me, open, truthful, and fearless even if she doesn’t see it in herself. She always puts it out there. No hiding, no games. “You’re…you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, and I like you, too. But when we were kissing, and you were over me, I got this awful flashback to one of the letters he wrote me. Where he detailed how he’d hold me down, force himself on me. I think missionary might be right out for me for a while.”
She laughs, and her body language relaxes some. She drops her arms, and I don’t look down, make myself hold eye contact, because right now she doesn’t need me to be a dick. “We can do you on top, cupcake, if you want to try this again at some point.”
I hope she does because now I’ve had a taste of her, I want so much more. We must match in some weird, science-based way. Good pheromones or something. My attraction to her hasn’t dimmed at all by us being together a little, it’s only brightened.
“Hell, cupcake.” She rolls her eyes at the pet name and relaxes further. Good. I tease some more. “You can even tie me up if it makes you feel better.”
She laughs, but then her face turns serious. “It might.”
“What?” I’d been joking. I get my own mini surge of anxiety. I don’t do being trapped so how will I handle being tied up? Then my lizard brain goes to war with itself, the fear center of the brain battling against the horny part, and the horny part wins.
I can suck up a bit of anxiety if it means I get more of her. In fact, now the idea is there, it’s as hot as hell. Me tied up, at her mercy. Her able to explore me to her heart’s content. I’d have no say in how fast she went, what she looked at, where she touched.
I open the wardrobe door and indicate my ties. “Baby, if it makes you want to carry on with what we’ve started, have at it.”