Ten
Dewey lingered out in the street for hours, long after the Lean Dogs’ old ladies were gone, long after night had fallen, and he was nothing but a slinking shadow against the backdrop of lit windows across the way.
Holly had progressed from a point of mindless shaking to a semi-stable state of deep-breathing and stiff-smiling her way through her shift. Dewey wasn’t as dangerous as the other two. Dewey was the informer, the squealer, the watcher. They’d figured out, somehow, that she must work here, and now they were setting up a vigil, waiting on her. Carly had been a stupid mistake. They would be more careful now.
When Michael came in, she released an audible sigh of relief. The sight of him crossing the boards was like watching the sun come up. He illuminated her world, pushed the darkness back, made it possible to breathe properly.
Holly went to him right away, empty-handed. There was no need for pretense anymore.
As she slid into the booth, his eyes came to her face and she watched him detect the panic in her, the way his expression became grim, his jaw tight. To anyone else, the changes in his face would have been impossible to notice; she knew its little movements so well by now that she recognized the strong reaction in him. He sensed the fear in her, and it brought a radiant, animal light to his hazel eyes that left her shivering.
“What?” he asked, elbows propping on the table, head thrusting toward her beneath the lamp. He was at complete attention.
Holly had to wet her lips before she could speak. Her mouth had become cardboard during her afternoon of constant stress. “Dewey,” she whispered. “He’s been outside on the sidewalk all day. Waiting.”
Michael tossed a fast, feral glance over his shoulder, toward the door. “Dark hair? Big ears?”
She nodded.
His lips pressed together, turning white. His eyes shifted away from her and across the bar, over the tables and patrons and beer-sign bedecked walls.
“I don’t think he can see through the windows,” she said. “They’re so dark. And I think, if he’d caught sight of me…”
“He’d have come in here,” Michael finished in a tight voice. He sent her a sudden, pointed look. “Or called for backup.”
“Yeah.” Her throat tightened and it was hard to swallow. “He was never very useful for anything. Abraham and Jacob must have dumped him off, so he could keep watch.”
Michael took a deep breath and seemed to collect himself, closing off the visible emotions so he seemed like his normal, closely-guarded self. “Okay, so here’s what we’ll do…”
A sharp gust of frigid air passed across her bare legs. It rustled paper napkins to the floor and drew startled, unhappy exclamations from the female patrons.
Someone had opened the door.
Holly looked toward the entrance and heard the panicked, strangled sound that tried to leave her throat.
Dewey was standing just inside the air lock, shivering and chafing at his arms through the sleeves of his thin canvas jacket. He looked so out of place: too thin inside his ill-fitting clothes, his feet turned at awkward duck angles, his ears casting shadows down onto his shoulders, like extendable side mirrors on a big truck.
Michael didn’t have to turn. “He came inside,” he said, voice sharp-edged.
“Yes.”
He spoke quickly, words clipped. “What will he do if he sees you?”
“Probably try to talk to me. He was always the one who tried to…reason with me.” She gulped down the bile that pressed at the back of her tongue.
“What if he sees you, and you walk away?”
“He’ll come after me.”
“Good. Get up, go in back, and let him follow you. Lead him somewhere out of the way, and keep him there.”
She gripped the edge of the table and felt the tendons leaping in her wrists. Her gaze was fixed on the man who’d pledged to be her husband just before her hands were bound to the bedposts. She’d known dread back then, as his clammy hands had stroked her naked skin and he’d professed that his rape was something divine and loving. But now, after she’d been part of the world beyond that farmhouse, dread wasn’t a strong enough word anymore.
“I can’t go back,” she whispered. “Michael, I can’t go back, I can’t!”
“Holly.” He thumped his fist down onto the table, drawing her attention. “Do what I said. Go in back, lead him away from here. I can’t do anything in the middle of all these people.”
She stared at the tightness of the bones in his face, at his pale skin like quartz in the lamplight, the fire in his eyes. He looked evil and awful. And beautiful. As beautiful as St. Michael as he’d stood above Lucifer.
“You won’t go back,” he said. “Hol, I promise you, sweetheart, that you won’t go back.”
He said, “Trust me. Lead him away.”
She studied him a long moment, drawing as much strength and grace from his burning eyes as she could, and then she got to her feet, sliding from the booth in a deliberate way, bending over to retrieve her empty tray. If Dewey didn’t glance at the way her white silk shorts rode up as she leaned forward, then there was nothing masculine inside him. And if he didn’t recognize her face when she straightened…
There, his gaze, fixed to her, his mouth slightly open, his small chest heaving as he drew in a deep breath. He’d seen her.
Holly made eye contact for one terrible moment, one in which she tumbled unwillingly into the past, remembering all those times he’d told her how special she was, as the ropes bit into her and he heaved his skinny body against hers while her father watched.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw her tray at him like an Olympic discus and sever his head with it.
Instead she whirled, and ducked between the two registers beside the fountain drink station, and headed down the dark, narrow back hall toward the restrooms.
She heard her shallow, frantic breathing echoing against the close walls, her sneakers scuffing at the boards.
Somewhere private, Michael had said. The restrooms wouldn’t do. Anyone could walk in on them. She thought about the alley, and then she thought about Carly and dismissed it. She didn’t want to leave the building. She wanted Michael to be able to find her.
She was rounding the corner at the back of the hall, turning away from the exterior exit, headed for the locker room when she heard Dewey’s voice behind her.
“Holly! Holly, wait!”
She broke into a jog.
Not the locker room – it was empty now, but who knew if it would stay that way. The girls were always going back to reapply lipstick.
The hall took another sharp right-hand turn and she reached the staircase that led up to the closed second story. Like so many of the downtown businesses, Bell Bar had residential and office space up above, but it hadn’t been used for years, and had been deemed unsafe by the city. The owner, Jeff went up sometimes, using the extra square footage for storage. But now there was a plastic chain stretched across the bottom of the stairwell, a Keep Out sign fixed at its center.
Holly clambered over the chain and started up the dark, dark passage, footsteps too loud on the old wooden stairs.
“Holly!” Dewey called again. He was catching up.
There was a hall at the top of the stairs, one she could only detect by feel, hands skimming along the dusty plaster on either side of her as she stumbled forward through the dark. There was a light ahead of her, something dim and yellowish, and she moved toward it.
“Holly! Don’t run from me!”
The hall emptied into a gallery at the front of the building, one enclosed by a long row of tall windows that perched above the Bell Bar sign on the outer wall below. The light, she knew now, was coming in from the street, the glow of streetlamps and headlights and neon signage in the windows, and the silvery dim glow of the moon, lost amid the smeared yellows and golds of human light.
Holly pressed her hands to the thick glass and tried to catch her breath, watching the traffic pass below her. This was as close to private at they were going to get. No one could see them from the street. Nothing but moldering junk and old ghosts present to witness what happened up here.
Footsteps behind her.
She turned, the window at her back, cold against her shoulder blades, and the ambient light struck off the oversized, childlike angles of Dewey’s face.
His eyes were huge and wet, glimmering with tears. He approached her slowly, now that she was penned in, one hand hovering in the air like he wanted to reach for her, but wasn’t sure if he should.
“Holly,” he whispered. “Holly, we looked all over for you. We were so afraid something bad had happened to you.”
There’d been a time, before, when she’d felt some small shred of sympathy for this man-child, because he’d never been the one to strike her, or take the belt to her. The practitioner of tiny kindnesses in a world of cruelty, his lack of punishment a reward in and of itself.
But she hated him now, as badly as she hated the other two.
“What,” she said through her teeth, “bad could possibly happen to me out here? Away from you?”
Confusion creased his forehead. He took another step closer, and then another. “Holly, why’d you run away? Why would you do that? You know I love you.”
“Did you kill Carly?” she asked, seething, shaking as he crept even closer. “Was that you or Abraham?”
“Holly–”
“You thought it was me, didn’t you? And when you realized it wasn’t, it was too late, and she’d seen your face, and you killed her, so no one would know what you’d done.”
The tears slipped free and began pouring down his cheeks, shining like glass. He snuffled, his face contorting with emotion. “No, no, I didn’t do that–”
“You liar! Why are you here?” she demanded. “Can’t you find some other girl? Can’t you leave me alone?”
“Holly, we love you,” he sobbed. “And we forgive you, for what you did. We–”
His eyes widened, bugging out of his head. He gasped.
Then Holly saw the hand at the side of his neck, the bright glint of the knife blade that pressed across his throat.
“Not a sound.” Michael’s voice came like a low, canine growl from the shadows behind Dewey. His other hand, spectral as it emerged from the darkness, latched onto Dewey’s hair, fingers curling tight, pulling at the scalp.
Steered between the cruel grip on his hair and the sharp blade at his Adam’s apple, Dewey shuffled to the side, Michael a shadowy wraith materializing behind him, spinning him, pressing him back against the wall.
The knife shifted and flared as Dewey swallowed. He breathed in shallow huffs, the sweat gleaming on his face.
Michael seemed inhuman, the way he was so still and coiled, patient in his furious intent. Again, Holly thought of him as canine, like the running silhouette of a dog on the back of his leather cut. All his weight bore down on the hilt of the knife, all of his strength holding back the blade, keeping it from biting into the flesh.
“You want to say anything to him?” he asked her, and she saw the fast glint of his eyes, as he glanced over at her.
Holly shook her head. “No. Nothing.”
Dewey gasped, but Michael moved too fast for there to be a scream. There was no begging or pleading. Dewey’s gasp turned into a low, deep, outward press of breath, like the sound of air leaving an untied balloon.
With a fluid, sure motion, Michael whipped the knife back and drove it between Dewey’s ribs, leaning into the hilt with hands, arms, shoulders, letting his body force the blade through the skin and tissue, into the heart.
When he stepped back, Dewey’s lifeless legs crumpled, and he sank down against the wall. The knife was still in him. There was no blood. His head lolled to the side at an impossible slackness, his eyes open and fixed, his mouth agape.
Dead.
He was dead.
No more Holly, Holly, Holly! No more clammy hands. No more cousin for a husband. No more crying at the side of the bed while Abraham took the belt to her.
Dewey was dead.
For years, three men had made her life the worst of waking nightmares, and now one of them was dead, in the span of a breath.
A wild, giddy laughter built in her throat, and she closed her lips against it. She felt lightheaded. She felt sick. She felt –
Michael turned to face her, his nose a sharp shadow in the filtering light, his eyes like warm glass discs.
She felt the irrepressible urge to throw her arms around him. She wanted to bury her face in his hot throat, wanted to feel his heart beating against her chest, wanted to feel his hips lifting against her hands, the way they had last night, when she’d found the evidence of his wanting.
The way he stared at her now, the hands that had killed her husband held down at his sides, told her that he wanted the same things.
He took a sharp breath. “Congratulations. You just got a divorce.”
Holly wanted to take his husband-killing hands into hers and pull him to her, have him press her up against the wall, and bend to take her mouth with his own.
But she had to be practical. She had to wait, even though an awful, unknown throbbing had started inside her.
She was breathing hard, her voice a sigh of sound. “What are we going to do with him?”
“Gimme your car keys, and I’ll take care of it.” He stepped in close to her, until she was enveloped in his shadow. She saw the faint gleam of skin, as he held his hand out to her, palm-up for the keys.
“I’ll just stay here, then,” she said, her mouth dry, her pulse skipping like moth’s wings in her ears.
“Finish your shift.” His voice had gone low and rough and completely unregulated. “I’ll come back and take you home.”
“You will?” She was staring at his hand, the calluses and lines as she pressed her keys into his palm.
His fingers closed around hers a moment, squeezing. She felt the rapid beat of blood beneath his skin. The same as her own.
“Michael,” she whispered. She didn’t understand any of this; wasn’t even sure what it was that she wanted so badly.
“Go downstairs, and wait, honey. Just wait.”
Stretched thin with nerves, barely managing to smile and speak and get her orders right, it seemed Michael was gone hours longer than the two that he was missing. Then, coming out of the kitchen, she saw him, like he’d sprouted by magic from his favorite booth. He was leaned back against the padded leather, arms folded loosely across his chest, calm and patient as always.
But when she doubled back, got a Jack from Matt and went to set it on the table, she saw the wicked glimmer in his eyes, the retained intensity of upstairs. Her pulse accelerated, as her hand lingered on the glass and his reached up to press against the back of her wrist, a light stroking that went almost to her elbow and then back, trailing off her fingers onto the warm whiskey tumbler, finally.
He stared at her face, saying nothing, absorbed by the way she took one small breath after another, her heart electrified by his simple touch.
“Where is he?” she asked in a whisper.
“I have a friend who has hogs,” he said, voice even, almost pleasant.
Holly shuddered. “You want something to eat?”
“No. I’ll just wait for you.”
Again, she was struck by the overwhelming urge to fold herself into his lap. She wanted him to comfort her, and kiss her, and do something about the relentless heat beneath her skin.
As if he sensed that, he said, with an expression she found sweet for some reason, “You want to see my place? It’s not much, but the sheets are clean.”
“Yes. Yes, please.”
He nodded, and picked up his drink. “It won’t be long.”
And it wouldn’t. She went back to work, her body pulsing and glowing and trembling inside the too-tight seams of her clothes, suddenly.
He didn’t want to leave his bike behind at the bar, so when her shift ended, he walked her to the Chevelle – his hand lingering on the door before he closed it, his breath pluming in the cold air, his eyes still on fire, the desire in him something she could feel against her skin – and then she followed his slender, menacing figure as he led the way on his Harley. A knight errant all in black, threatening and sinister with the leather, and the growl of the engine, and the way he carried himself like he owned all these dark streets around them. He did, didn’t he? The Lean Dogs owned this city.
He didn’t live far from the heart of town, in an older neighborhood full of tall, crowded trees, the streetlamps dim and flickering, the homes low-slung, well-built, most of the lights out at this ungodly hour. He turned into the driveway of a brick Craftsman home with a wide, concrete porch held up by thick brick columns, the drive sloping down to a parking pad shaded by pines, some errant shine of the moon catching the windows of the closed doors that marked the drive-under garage.
The dark frightened her, the absolute blackness of it, the way it seemed liquid and alive. The house was a dim shape above, same as the neighboring one, but the yards, the trees, the fences: all of it up to the imagination, and in her mind, crawling with threat.
The concrete was carpeted with fallen pine needles, and they crunched beneath her shoes as she climbed out. She shuddered hard against the cold, as it wrapped around her bare legs and cut through her thin leather jacket.
When she shut the door and turned, there was Michael, and his presence made the dark bearable, the cold less penetrating. Wordlessly, he slipped an arm around her waist, urging her against his side as they started up toward the house. Whether he meant it as support or affection, she didn’t care. He was warm, and solid, and strong, and she put her arm around him, too, inside his open jacket, where she could feel the heat of his skin against her hand, through his shirt.
“This is a big house,” she said, fighting the chattering of her teeth as they reached the top of the drive and she got her first good look at the dark lines of roof and porch. “I love this porch,” she said, as they stepped into its shade, and there was the sound of keys rattling as Michael fished them from his pocket.
He snorted. “You don’t have to compliment the house.”
“But I like it,” she protested. “It’s not what I expected.”
He made an inquiring sound, unlocking the deadbolt with one hand while he held onto her with the other.
“I thought you might have a cave up in the mountains somewhere,” she said, biting on a laugh.
“Sounds about right,” he said, pushing the door inward, pulling her in alongside him.
The warmth struck her first. It was cozily warm in here, the air dry and soothing, like he’d left the heat running while he was gone, the floor humming faintly underfoot to prove the point.
“Oh, that’s nice,” she murmured, as they finally broke apart and Michael turned to relock the door.
“I hate winter,” he muttered, as way of explanation, and Holly smiled. So he wasn’t all frigid and cold. She’d been learning that, but the blast of heat proved it further.
There was a small clicking sound and then buttery light filled the space around them, the house rushing to take shape.
They stood in a tiled foyer, the light coming from a pendant chandelier overhead. Two brick columns set off the entryway from the living room beyond, and the furnishings surprised her.
Here in the foyer, a slender table held a ceramic urn with a spray of silk pussy willow fanning against the cream wall. Opposite was a mirror, a coat rack, a brass umbrella stand in the shape of an opening tulip, tiny brass rabbits etched at its base.
The living room was painted a rich gold, the couch a comfy-looking sectional in a dark brown plaid, the carpet tall cream shag, the recliner a leather La-Z-Boy. There was a stone fireplace, its hearth heaped with logs, flanked on both sides by built-in bookcases. That was where the TV was, the only thing modern and shiny about the room – the big flat screen fitted into the proper alcove, bordered top and bottom by shelves stacked with DVD cases.
“I bought the place furnished,” Michael explained without her having to ask. “I didn’t see much sense in changing anything.”
“I understand,” she said, glancing toward him. “That’s how I feel about my loft. Why bother, you know?”
He wouldn’t look at her, took off his jacket and hung it up, reached for hers as she followed suit.
“Well,” she said, “at least it’s warm, and it’s cozy.”
“I’m having another drink,” he said, leaving her to follow as he set off through the living room.
He was nervous now, Holly guessed. Or reconsidering. Something. At least she knew she hadn’t imagined the burn in him before. Otherwise, she might have felt discouraged, might have felt her own heat dimming some.
The kitchen was spotless, but dated: glass-faced white cabinets, green soapstone counters, tiny octagonal floor tiles and white squares for the backsplash. There was a bay window, with a table in it, and beyond, Holly could just make out the shadows of trees. She wondered what the view was like during the day.
Michael reached into an upper cabinet, pulled down two squat blue glasses from what looked like a set of dozens, and a bottle of Jack Daniels. He poured more than either of them needed in each cup.
“Were the dishes part of the furnishings?” Holly asked, smiling.
“Yep.” He turned, and pressed one of the glasses into her hands.
She knew, the second her fingers touched his, but was confirmed when she glanced up and met his gaze: he was throbbing too. He was full of that same pulsing energy, just like her. It shone wildly in his eyes, caught in the sharp corners of his mouth, vibrated through his skin where their hands still touched.
Holly took a deep, shaky breath. “What is this?”
Holding eye contact, he threw down his whiskey in one swallow, his voice just a little hoarse afterward. “It’s what it’s supposed to feel like.”
Her chest squeezed. She was too afraid to hope he was right, but she wanted him to be. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He plucked the glass from her hand – she didn’t want it anyway. Then he caught her by the face, his palms gentle against her cheeks, but his grip firm, and drew her into him, angling her chin so when he bowed his head, his mouth could slant sideways over hers.
She moaned against his lips at the first touch. She wanted to anchor herself, have some point to hold onto, and she clutched at his shirt, greedy handfuls of the soft cotton.
Michael pulled her even closer, until she was resting against the length of his body, one hand moving to cup the back of her head, the other finding her waist, holding her to him. There was fear, that instant flash of it that came with being touched by large, male hands. But his tongue was hot as it passed between her lips, and full of the sharp taste of whiskey.
He kissed her and kissed her, lavishing attention to her mouth that had never been paid to it. It was intimate and wet and left all her joints soft. She let herself sag against him, lost in the strange comfort of his mouth stroking hers. It eased her in a small way, but it made the throbbing more acute, concentrating it between her thighs and in her breasts, bringing a desperate heat to her skin.
She could feel his chest beneath her knuckles, through his shirt, the solid wall of lean muscle there. He was like steel. She opened her hands, pressed them to the flat pads of his pectorals, liking the unyielding firmness of them, flicking her tongue against his as he invaded her mouth.
He responded to the shy flexing, his hand moving from her waist to her back, sliding down, around the curve of her bottom, clutching at her through her thin sink shorts.
She gasped, their lips breaking apart. She didn’t want to be afraid. She wasn’t, she didn’t think; she was shocked. Amazed at the sensation of his hand on her ass, and the way she wanted more, wanted to shift against him, searching for friction.
How many cocks had she had inside her? She shouldn’t be this sensitive and excited.
But it was different. This time, she wanted this man, and that made all of this so important, and so achingly scary.
“You killed him,” she whispered, stretching up onto her toes, pressing her breasts into his chest, trying to read his expression through heavy-lidded eyes. “Oh my God, you killed him. Michael, you killed him, and he’s gone, and he’ll never…” She couldn’t even say it. It was too exquisite.
“I did.” He kissed her, the sound of their lips coming apart afterward bringing up a wet warmth between her legs. “He’s gone.”
She leaned forward, initiating the next kiss, inexpertly stroking his lips with hers.
He made a sound, a low growling deep in his throat, that she echoed with a soft, feminine growl of her own.
“Do you want it?” he whispered. “Really want it? I have to stop right now if you don’t. It hurts too bad.”
She reached for him, found the rigid shape of his cock behind his fly and pressed her hand to it. “I want it.”
He snatched her up, lifted her high against his chest and caught her under the knees with one arm, behind the shoulders with the other. The house was a blur, tumbling around her as he walked them down a hall, past dark doors, finally passing into the one at the end.
He paused. It was dark, and this room smelled of him: his skin, his soap, his cologne, his smoke and his clothes. His bedroom.
She shivered in his arms.
“Lights?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, softly. “I want to see it’s you.”
“Jesus,” he whispered, but his arm shifted behind her shoulders and there was a click before warm light filled the room.
It was a big bed in a small room, the light coming from a nightstand lamp. The comforter looked plush, a warm brown, like it was something he’d bought rather than inherited.
He carried her to the bed, set her down carefully, and then he stood looking at her a moment, his deep breaths lifting his chest, stretching the shirt across the distinct shapes of all his muscles.
And then he sank down to his knees in front of her, and gently pushed her legs apart, moving between them. Holly let him move her, enraptured and pliant, as he pulled her to the very edge of the bed, his hands at her waist, until the width of his chest filled up the space between her thighs, forcing her legs farther apart. His arms encircled her, a comforting contrast to the way her legs were so open.
His eyes fixed on hers, molten in the centers. “Everything I do,” he said in an earnest voice, “is because I want you. It’s got nothing to do with hurting you.” His brows lifted, urging her to understand.
The small gesture of kindness almost brought her to tears. She nodded. “I know.”
His eyes shifted to her breasts, and she saw in him the pain of restraint. Her eyes stung. No one had ever held back on her account.
He said, “Take off your shirt.”
She did, peeling it up and over her head, letting it fall to the bed beside her. She’d worn the red bra again, the one she’d used half a paycheck to order from the Victoria’s Secret catalogue along with the matching panties.
Michael liked it: she saw it in the twitch of his eyelids, the fast glimpse of the pink tip of his tongue as he wet his lips. He let his eyes rove over the lace and satin creation a moment, the way it lifted and shaped her. She felt his heart, thundering against the soft inside of her thigh where his chest was pressed to her.
Then he nodded: time for the bra to go, too.
When she reached back to unclasp it, her chest was thrust forward, toward his face. She felt his breath against her skin. She unfastened the clasp, let the straps fall, pulled the cups away, and then laid the bra down on top of her shirt.
The fear came again, a fast stab, because now she was exposed.
But the harshness in his face was different from all that she’d known. The way he was lower than her, kneeling in front of her, that was different too. And when his hands lifted, she could only watch, fascinated, as they closed over her breasts.
She waited for the pawing. The brutal squeezing. Holding her breath.
But instead, he cupped the heavy weights in his palms, kneaded lightly at the undersides, a massage that stirred at the heat in her belly. He shaped her breasts, petted them, his hands looking dark against the round softness.
His thumbs found her nipples, circled them, and they drew up into tight, aching buds. He pressed them, flicked at them.
“Michael,” she gasped. “You don’t have to–”
“Yeah, I do.”
And his head came forward, and his breath feathered across her raised nipple before he took it into his mouth with a small, wet sucking sound.
The jolt of sensation was incredible. “Oh.” Her arms locked and her neck tightened. She glimpsed his head at her breast and felt the warm suction of his mouth, and the fear burned away. She let her head fall back, the weight of her hair pulling at her, no match for the force of his tongue pulling at her nipple, hard, forceful suckling, like he was nursing from her.
The tight spiral of tension in her unwound and slithered to a place deep in her belly, where it began to reform, coiling again in a way that made her breath rough and choppy.
He was relentless, pulling away only so that he could nuzzle her other breast, drawing that nipple between his lips, too.
She didn’t realize her legs had tightened until she felt his hands on her thighs, urging them wider. She lifted her head to protest; she needed something, anything, even if it was just squeezing her knees together to soothe the thumping pulse in her sex.
But the words died on her tongue when she looked at him.
He pulled back, her nipples wet and glittering from his mouth, and Holly realized that she’d been straining toward him with her hips, that the warmth right up against her came from his chest. His hands were on her thighs, intimately high, up under the edges of her shorts. His expression was ferocious, all angles and sharp shadows.
“Lie back,” he told her, and his hand came up to press at her belly, urging her to comply.
She did, marveling in the feel of rough skin and gentle touch as his hand shifted down her stomach, to the waistband of her shorts. Now would come the moment when he climbed on top of her, and came inside her, and she was ready. The comforter was plush beneath her back, and the warm air was stirring against all her aroused skin, and however it went, this had all been beyond her wildest dreams.
A hard tug from both his hands, and her shorts and panties were gone, skimming down over her ankles, catching at her shoes. Those were wrenched off with fast, efficient gestures. And then the hands were back, smoothing across the tender insides of her thighs, that low, flat span of belly just above the hungry, wet part of her she didn’t understand right now.
Then his fingers were against her, stroking her, skimming through the wetness. Then parting her, stroking deeper.
Holly made an incoherent sound. Her face was hot and she was quivering all over. There was something bold and obscene about the careful way he was touching her, working slowly until one long finger was inside her. It was deliberate, and it felt so very good, and she hadn’t expected it.
But why was he still down there on his knees? Why hadn’t he already pounced on her?
“Michael–” She gasped.
Something else was touching her now, something warm and soft, and there was this faint prickling, scratching…
She pushed up on her elbows and glanced down her naked body, gasping again when she saw what he was doing.
He head was bent over her. It was his mouth she felt against her sex.
“Michael…” She didn’t want this. She didn’t think she did. She didn’t know… “What are you…?”
“Down,” he told her, a rough growl, and then his mouth opened against her and she felt his tongue.
Her arms gave out and she fell back on the bed once more, breath catching. The old popcorn ceiling filled her vision, a muted cream in the lamplight. She pulled in lungfuls of the smoke, cologne, and skin smell of the room.
Michael pushed her legs up, so her knees were bent and her heels were braced on the edge of the mattress. He circled her thighs with his arms, pulled her in tight against him, and his mouth worked against her, again and again. He devoured her. And then there was no question as to whether she wanted it. It became the only thing she’d ever wanted, and she never wanted it to stop.
And then his lips found a tiny little place, and concentrated there, and her body was not her own. She felt her spine bowing, her hips pressing upward toward his mouth. The pleasure started at his kiss, and then swept outward, filling her with heat and sparks and the most delicious firing of all her muscles at once. A molten explosion in her belly. Hot whiskey fizzing through her veins. There was the sweetest weakening of her neck, a heaviness in her head, like when she’d had just enough to drink to sleep soundly.
In those moments, she felt the world change, and when the pleasure began to recede in lapping waves, she was still in the bedroom, still the same girl who’d followed Michael home tonight.
But everything was different.
And then Michael was on his feet and rising over her, climbing onto the bed so that the mattress dipped all around her, his weight settling above hers. His face had never looked more alive to her, eloquent of tension and hunger and predatory intent.
He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and then swooped down to kiss her, plunging his tongue into her mouth, forcing her jaw wide with his lips. It was rough. The new taste on his lips was her, she realized. He tasted like her.
Her legs opened wide as his hips settled between, and when he reached for his belt, her fingers were there to help him, tugging down the zipper, reaching inside for the weapon he’d use on her.
She froze, gasping a little, when she realized how large he was, and the old fear came creeping in again, challenging the pleasure.
Michael broke away from the kiss and he reached for her hand, covering it with his. “Relax,” he told her, and took her lips again, this time slowly and gently, as they both guided him to her entrance.
It wasn’t the same as all the other times. She was slippery and wet, and still throbbing with the aftershocks of before, all her flesh primed for the invasion, devastatingly aware of the shape and texture of him. It had always been a dry forcing, an awful hardness jammed into her against her will. But this was her body stretching and inviting him in. Not a taking, but a filling. Until he was deeply-rooted inside her, and he was panting against her throat, and her body wanted even more of him, though it wasn’t possible.
“Are you alright?” he asked in a tortured whisper. “Please say you’re alright.”
She was astounded. “I’m fine.”
“Put your arms around me.”
She did, reaching with her hands for the taut muscles of his back, the soft cotton covering the hard lines of bone.
He braced his forearms on the mattress, and he started to move.
It was the same primal movement she’d always known, but Michael was so strong, his thrusts so sure and complete, the way they bore her down into the mattress on each stroke. And they were strokes – he stroked the wet inside of her, igniting a deep, rippling pleasure that grew and grew as his hips churned.
She clung to him, hands going to the small of his back, fingers curling tight in his shirt. She imagined she was pushing him down, urging him harder, and harder against her, as her hips rose to meet his.
It was only the two of them. There was only the sound of the bed creaking, and their sharp breathing, and the gentle sounds of struggling against one another as they chased the good feelings. It was exactly what it was supposed to be.
And this time, when her orgasm started, she recognized it for what it was. All those times she’d seen men go stiff as boards, latching onto her and crying out. This is what that felt like. Only this had to be so, so much better than anything they’d ever felt with her, because this was too sublime to be believed.
She clutched at Michael as she felt that final hard kick of his hips. She came with an explosion of inner fireworks, gasping and lifting into him. She felt his teeth against her neck. Felt the spasms and shudders move through his steely body.
And then he relaxed and settled more fully over her, still inside her as the pulses tugged at both of them, letting her hold some of his weight and feel the limp exhaustion she’d brought to him.
He was heavy and he smelled nice, like him plus clean sweat. He was so warm and his heart was thumping so hard against her naked breasts.
She was limp and delirious, and she couldn’t comprehend the pleasure his body had brought to hers.
When the tears came, she didn’t have the strength to stop them. “Michael,” she whispered, as she started to shiver, the tears streaming down her face. “Thank you.” Her voice was a tremulous, broken thing. “Thank you, thank you,” she chanted. “I never…I had no idea…oh, Michael…” The sobs consumed her, and she was ashamed, but she couldn’t reel them in.
Michael shifted to his side and pulled her into his chest, so she could press her wet face into his shirt. His hand rubbed up and down her back in slow, soothing strokes.
“Sleep here with me tonight,” he said, quietly.
All she could do was nod.
She dozed, and when she stirred, she had a moment’s fleeting fear. But the warm, lamplit room was still there, and Michael still lay stretched in front of her on his side, watching her with a blank, but soft expression, propped up on one arm.
She needed him to understand what this had meant to her. She touched his chest, caressing him lightly through his shirt. “Are you hungry? I could make you something to eat.”
He shook his head. “Not hungry.”
“Coffee then? Another whiskey?”
“Nope.”
“Well…” She looked imploringly at him. “What can I do for you?”
His brows lifted in slight surprise.
“I want…I just want to do something for you. I think I need to.”
Something dark and complicated shifted through his eyes. “All you need to do is get under the covers so you don’t catch cold.”
“But–”
He rolled away and got to his feet, reaching for the top corner of the comforter to draw it down. His hair was disheveled and his jeans hung open, and he looked cute to her, all out of sorts like this.
She climbed off the other side, so he could turn the bed down, folding her arms across her middle. She was cold, if she admitted it, and the sheets looked inviting.
She didn’t move right away, though, instead watching as he peeled his shirt up over his head, stepped out of his jeans.
She’d been right in her guess about the boxer-briefs, but she hadn’t guessed just how spare and chiseled his physique would be. He didn’t look like the college-age barhoppers who spent all day in the gym, bulking themselves up. She could see the framework of bone, and the tight, firm stretches of muscle between. He looked like he had a fast metabolism, like he burned off all the Salisbury steak dinners he ate. Almost too thin, maybe, but strong, distinct, steel-hard calves, and thighs, and abs. She liked his narrow hips. Liked the way his throat was well-defined, his collarbones distinct. He was beautiful.
And that was before he slid into bed and reached out a hand for her, pulling her down to the sheets and bundling her in close to him as he pulled up the covers.
Holly sighed and buried her face in his shoulder.
He reached for the lamp, and then the dark closed over them.
Hands on her, in the dark. Breath against her face, fingers on her breasts, and belly, sliding down her hips. Fear firing in her, her body going still and unresisting out of old habit. Don’t make noise, don’t breathe, don’t show displeasure, and it will be over soon.
But then…
“Holly.” Michael’s voice, through the total darkness, brushing across her lips. She was being turned gently onto her back, weight was settling over her, the hands easing her thighs apart. “Hol, wake up.”
It was night, and she was still in his bed, and he wanted her again.
She was liquid and melting again at once, reaching for him, finding the skin of his sides, his back.
“I’m awake,” she murmured, and he entered her, sinking down, down, down, until their bodies were flush. Joined completely.
“Christ, I need this,” he whispered, and kissed her, ravaged her mouth. “I’m sorry, honey,” he gasped when he pulled back, his hips withdrawing and plunging, the thrusting starting. “But I do, I need it.”
“Don’t be sorry.” She stroked his back, the rippling muscles of it, moving lower, lower, and whimpering when his thrusts deepened in response. “I need it too,” she whispered back, fiercely. “Please…”
He was reaching deep, his cock thrusting against places inside her she hadn’t known existed. She felt the thrusting move through her, going up her spine, pressing at her throat.
Need…yes, she needed. He’d given her ecstasy, and she wanted more, more, more; wanted to take all of him she possibly could. She felt his cock like a hot brand against her womb, burning away all the awful that had come before it, vaporizing the touch of her tormenters.
She found the tight bundled muscles of his ass with her hands and kneaded with her fingertips, holding his hips to hers, urging his savage thrusting.
More, more…
He plunged into her again, and again.
And then the crest came. He banded his arms around her, crushed her to his chest.
She felt the hot spill of release and surrendered to it, thought she might pass out.
Then it was over, and it was only glowing embers, and Michael had her in his arms again, and they were damp and hot and clinging together under the covers.
Holly knew, as sleep bore down on her, that her initial bargain had been such a stupid, childish thing. How naïve of her to think she could walk away from him like this was a business deal. She’d be in love with him, before it was all over.
Maybe she already was, she thought, before she drifted off.