Erin
He was heavy on my back, still embedded deep inside me, and our bodies were slick with our combined sweat. The scent of our sex permeated the air. I was collapsed in a kind of curl on the couch, slowly coming back into the moment, and I knew he’d be at least a minute or two behind me. That was okay. His weight was comforting; I felt protected, safe, and utterly at ease. It was wonderful. I didn’t realize how much my daily tension—and the added stresses of today’s extreme tension—had taken hold of my body. He really was good for me, at least on this physical level.
As my consciousness slowly drifted back to awake, I recognized how right he had been: my body recognized him, sought him out, trusted him even before my mind did. He was offering himself to me, in a way, by asking for my trust, my confidence, my faith in his ability to help me. This was a new experience for me, and it was hard for me to grasp all the implications. But I did know this might be my only opportunity to ask for his help, to test that trust. He’d given me no reason to disbelieve what he said, and every reason to believe him. He treated me with kindness, and caring, and firmness, and humor, and a fierce strength I knew would be necessary, no matter how things played out ahead.
The bottom line was I wanted to trust him. I wanted his help. I wanted to not be alone anymore.
Britt had been a rock for me, but she had her own life, too, and her own baggage she was trying to carry. She balanced as precariously as I did. I loved her dearly, but I could not ask more of her than her love and honesty and emotional support.
But Torch was asking me to ask more of him. To rely on him. To trust in him.
And, god, did I want to.
He gave me a long squeeze, a backward hug, then kissed my shoulder blade and pulled himself up and out of me, slowly so I could feel every inch of him again. I groaned. I hated the emptiness he left behind, but I think both of us were also ready to get in a more comfortable space. I wished we would have been in a normal bedroom, but maybe there would be a chance for that later.
Later. Oh my god, I just realized what I had promised him. I had sworn off my plan for tonight; there would be no big shootout with Mr. Fletch. I was at once both regretful and supremely relieved. Fuck it all, I was Hamlet. The truth was I desperately wanted—no, needed—to revenge my sister. But my nerves and anxiety tonight—not to mention my utter relief in the safety net of Torch—forced home that I really did not want to become, in the process, a killer. I had no idea where to go from here.
“Okay, baby, let’s get out of here. We have some things to work out still, yeah?” While my mind had been wandering, Torch had apparently taken care of trashing the condom and already had his jeans on. Barefoot and bare-chested—hot damn, but he was beautiful—Torch looked at me expectantly.
“Yeah, you’re right. I guess we do.” He watched me for a minute, as I peeled myself off the couch and reached for some Kleenex to wipe myself off before redressing in my scant G-string. He tossed me his T-shirt and drew on his kutte over his bare torso, then put on his socks and boots again. I still had my stilettos on, so it seemed we were good enough to go. I just had to drop back into the dressing room to grab my duffel and handbag, throw on my black miniskirt and a top, return his tee to him, and we could be off. I’m not sure why, but we seemed to have an automatic mutual understanding that no matter the time, my shift was over.
He followed me home on his bike, and I gave him the two-second tour of my one-bedroom apartment. There wasn’t much to it; everything in it was Goodwill furniture and secondhand articles. I’d been ready to just leave it all behind, obviously. There was nothing of sentiment, nothing of attachment or personal value. So there wasn’t much for him to investigate that might have been of note. His gaze swept the space once, and he looked at me knowingly, as if he could read right off the bat that this was just a space I slept in, and not one that reflected me at all.
“Have a seat, Torch. You want anything to drink?” I asked, trying to act like a normal person might under normal circumstances, having a new friend over to visit. It had been a very long time since anyone but Britt or Thea had been in my space, and I was out of practice. But I seemed to get it right.
“Just a glass of water, babe. Get yourself one, too. Then come over here and sit. Get off your feet.” He quickly made friends with my iPod and speaker set, picked out one of my favorite bossa nova albums, and cornered himself on the couch.
I did as requested, put the glasses on the coffee table, and joined him there. He pointed me to the opposite end and adjusted himself to face me so he was sitting sideways, one foot tucked under his knee, the other on the floor. He gestured to my feet and patted his lap. “Right here, babe. Gimme your feet.”
I did, and he slipped my shoes off easily and proceeded to rub my left foot with both of his huge strong hands. He had magic in those hands. I almost started moaning, it felt so good. He was rubbing into my heel, my arch, pulling out and stretching each toe, rolling his thumbs along lines on my soles. It was like heaven. My eyes rolled to the back of my head.
Astrid Gilberto was crooning light and smooth, and my mind was floating out near space as Torch spent several minutes on the left and then switched to give equal attention to the right. He gave me that time in silence, knowing intuitively that this was a rare and special treat for me. How often does a dancer without a romantic partner actually get her feet massaged? Speaking only for myself, the answer was never. The building could have been on fire, and I would not have noticed, nor cared.
But all good things must end. Eventually his hands slowed down, and he held the tops of my feet, keeping them warm but no longer at work.
I slowly peeled open my eyes and righted my head from its recline. I gazed at him gratefully, breathing a little heavily through my open mouth.
He smiled lightly, then asked, “You ready to talk, baby?”
I just about cried. He was being so sweet. “Yeah, Torch. I’m ready.”
“What’s got you goin’ lately, Erin?”
I took a deep breath and pulled my feet from his hands, then curled my legs under me. I grabbed my water, took a sip, then raised my eyes to his. “You know about my sister?” I asked.
His brow furrowed. “Your sister? I didn’t know you have a sister. No. What about her?”
The wetness that threatened behind my eyes started falling down my face. My voice managed to scratch out, “I had a sister. Had, Torch. Thea. Danny Fletch killed her. Or had her killed. I don’t know. Either way, it was him. So I have to get him back. I have to, Torch. I have to.” I kind of dissolved into my hands.
Torch didn’t just sit there. He pulled me across the couch, turned me so I was cradled in his lap with both my legs draped over his and my back resting half against the couch and half against his chest. He pulled my head back to his shoulder and draped one arm across my upper back, the other resting on my outer hip. He was like a big man-couch. I was breathing in his scent, cuddled in his muscular heat. I was crying on his freaking shoulder, for god’s sake, getting him all sloppy wet, and he just held me through it.
“Tell me what happened, Erin.”
“I don’t really know the whole thing. But Thea—she wasn’t easy, you know? She was my little sis, five years younger than me. I took care of her, since we were little. But she wasn’t easy. We got on okay, but it was hard. So after I got this gig at the club, I figured, this isn’t bad, and it’s good money, so if both of us are there, we’d have each other’s backs and we’d make like double the money, and we’d be solid, for the first time in forever.
“It started out good. She wasn’t the greatest dancer; it didn’t come naturally for her like it does me, but she could hold her own. I taught her a lot. We’d practiced. She was doing all right. But then, I don’t know, I think Mr. Fletch got to her. Started talking to her about other ways of earning bigger bucks, and it turned her head.
“She was always looking for the easy way out, of pretty much everything. It got her messed up some in high school; she dropped out when she was fifteen. She had gotten into drugs and was drinking too much, ya know? But I finally got her cleared of that mess. Or, I thought so. Maybe not.
“Anyway, the Centerfold scene—hell, maybe I fucked up really badly, bringing her into that. Maybe it made her think less of using her body for money. I never really thought of it like that. I feel like I control what happens with me there, you know what I mean? But maybe, Thea…maybe she felt like, what difference does it make what I do, if it makes more money?”
My mind drifted in that direction, and I got lost in my thoughts for a few minutes.
Torch brought me back to the moment. “So let me guess. Danny Fletch talked her into doing one of his movies.” He totally got it.
“Yeah. Only, something must have happened. Bad. Because Thea never came back, that first day she went to the set. She just never came home. And Mr. Fletch…Mr. Fletch, he just—he laughed—” And my tears got me again.
Torch waited me out, not letting me go. He was like a rock, warm and solid, letting me find my breath again.
“When was this, baby?” he asked softly.
“Just about two months ago. Maybe a little more. End of February. That weekend we had that big snow, you remember?”
He grunted but didn’t say anything more. It was like his mind had drifted off, too. We sat there in silence for a bit, thinking our own thoughts, lost in hazes of memories and mazes of questions.
Torch brought us back to point. “So what else do you know about it? Who else was there? Did Fletch ever say anything to you about it?”
My breath shot out a single ha. “I know it was a porno she was filming. I don’t know what it was about, but I do know there was some big secret about it Thea wasn’t telling me. She said she was gonna make extra big bank for doing it, not like a typical porno. That he wanted her, special, for it.
“I was the one who dropped her off at the warehouse where they were gonna film it. It was out of town, almost an hour away, by all these industrial parks and warehouses. She was going to get a ride back to Centerfold when she was done, so I didn’t expect to see her ‘til that night. But then she never showed up.
“When I didn’t see her at Centerfold that night, I asked him where she was, and his eyes went all squinty, and then he laughed like some little evil gremlin, and he said, ‘Yeah, Erin, your little sister, she’s something. I don’t think you’re gonna see her tonight. She’s kind of gone out. Took off. Yeah, she’s took off. The, uh, MC guy took care of that. Found her a nice little hole to lay low in. She won’t be rising up anytime soon. You put her outta your mind, now. No more questions, you hear? Let her go, be all the better for you.’
“It was the way he laughed, and the way he worded it, like not that she took off, but that she had been taken off, and then put in a hole. You hear the difference, Torch? You see what I mean? It’s like she’s in a grave.”
“I hear it, baby. I’m not gonna argue it with you. It doesn’t sound good. Did you go to the cops? If you think…Just, what did you do?”
“No. No. No cops. I—we—we can’t go to the cops, Torch. That’s not—that’s—we never—no cops, Torch. No cops.” I was hyperventilating and clutching at his chest. I was nearly panicked at the thought that he might now insist on dragging the police into this, which was the very last thing I needed. The police were not an option in my life, in Thea’s life. That was a complete no-go zone, and Torch needed to get that. ASAP.
“Whoa. Okay, baby, relax. Calm down. Breathe, all right? No cops. I hear you. I promise.”
I held his eyes, looking for truth, and finding it. My breathing started to deepen again, though it was still jagged and rough. I just kept trying to calm myself, to get control again.
“Okay. You’re doin’ good, Erin. Just keep breathin’. You feel like you can keep talkin’ right now, baby? Tell me how you’re feelin’.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m okay.” I took a sip of water, which turned into several gulps.
He gave me a few minutes more to settle, then asked again, “Who did you see when you dropped her off at the warehouse? Do you know which MC guy he was talkin’ about?” It was a little weird, because his voice was tight, guarded. I looked into his face, reading his tension, but not knowing where it came from.
“I’m not sure. There were a couple of guys by the door, at the lot when I dropped her off that morning. One was a Latino guy, I think. I don’t know his name. Tall, good-looking, maybe your age? Late twenties? Um, he had black hair, coffee-creamy skin. Athletic. I remember he smiled at us. He had a really nice smile, big, you know? I haven’t seen him around either, since that day, so maybe…I don’t know. Maybe he had something to do with it? But I never met him, don’t know his name, and I can’t be sure.
“The other guy was older, with the salt-and-pepper hair tied back, goes by Skinny or Skim? Something like that. He always seems real important around here. I think he’s, like, important in your MC? And he scowls a lot. You gotta know who I mean. He’s not approachable, and every time I catch his eye he looks like he wants to kill me. So I never asked him. I stay away from him. I don’t know, maybe he’s the one Fletch was talking about.”
Torch’s eyes hardened. Again, he was processing all this, and he didn’t respond or do anything more for a few minutes.
Finally, he said, “Shit,” under his breath. I looked at him more sharply, wondering if maybe he knew something, like what I had just told him answered some questions he had knocking around in his head.
But he shook it a little, left and right, tightened his lips around a sigh through his nose, and hooked my eyes with his own. “Babe, you gotta promise me somethin’. You gotta promise me you won’t do anythin’ about this, and you won’t say anythin’ about this to anybody else, at least for a few more days. There is more goin’ on, and I gotta figure this shit out, and it is not safe. Promise you’ll keep your cool, and you’ll tell me if you hear anythin’ more. And you don’t plan anythin’ without me. You gotta let me take this on for you. Okay?”
“No way, Torch. I can’t do that. This is my sister we’re talking about. I can’t just let it go, and I can’t just let you deal with it. I have to do something. I have to make Danny Fletch pay, because I know in my heart that he did something really bad, really evil to her. So he has to pay for it. I can’t not do anything.”
“I hear you, Erin, but I need you to hear me. This is not just about your sister. There is somethin’ more goin’ on here, and I need to handle it. I need you to let me do that. I need you to trust me on this. I need you to give me that. Step down, Erin. And I’m not askin’. I’m tellin’.”
“No fucking way, Torch.” I shook my head.
He shook his head. “You and your fucking mouth, Erin.” His eyes softened, though, and he said it as though my swearing had brightened the moment, lifted him out of the darkness into which we had been plummeting.
And he kissed me. Not very gently, but not roughly, either. Just smoothly, like it was the natural formation of us and he was just laying the parts back together. Our tongues intertwined and our breaths melded, and my body, of its own accord, turned into his for most contact.
His hands roamed my back until they found their happy place on my ass cheeks, which he gripped firmly, squeezing and molding, until I was dripping with want. I shifted to straddle him on the couch, and soon enough I was perched on top of his hard cock, hidden and blunted through his jeans. I could feel his desire, and his mouth grew possessive of mine, the kiss rougher and more forceful.
He sucked hard on my lower lip, scraping it as he backed away from my face to strip my top over my head, and he found me braless beneath it. He suddenly surged forward, tumbling me on my back while his body covered mine. My head ended up near the armrest, cocooned into the padding. His large hands cupped my breasts, and he lowered his mouth to one nipple, licking its firm bud and then sucking it into his mouth, nipping and teething it variably. I struggled for breath. The sensations jetted directly down to my core center, and I could feel my juices flowing freely. I threw my head back and lifted my hips in a physical demand for attention southward. He was not in a mood to comply. He let out a deep short chuckle and said, “Babe.” Like that even meant anything.
But he just kept on going with his ministrations to my breasts and nipples, switching his attention between them, his hands molding their shape, pushing them together, scratching the sensitive skin with the new growth of his facial hair, rubbing and tonguing and sucking and squeezing and nipping. I was starting to lose my mind from the pleasure, but it wasn’t enough. I needed more.
I gripped his tousled, silky dark hair in my hands and he groaned. I forced myself to let go. My hands rolled down his back, and I dug my fingers into his muscles and dragged them upward again to his shoulder blades, letting him feel how mad he was driving me. “Torch, more.” I was having difficulty pulling words.
Finally, he pulled back and shifted his legs and feet to solid ground. In one swift move, he leaned in to gather me into his arms and stood up. “Wrap your legs around me, baby.”
What’s a girl to do? I did as told.
He made short work of the journey to my bedroom, and suddenly we were bouncing together on my bed, our legs draped over the side. Our mouths reconnected, and sucking on his tongue became the most important thing for some moments. It was delicious. But he kept slipping it around my mouth, playing with me. I just chased after him, loving his taste and his scent and his muscular strength surrounding me.
I tugged on the kutte still hugging his shoulders. He must have been in an obliging mood, because he quickly slipped free of it and pulled his T-shirt off over the back of his head, as well. Then we were skin to skin, and it was glorious. I loved the heat of him, the soft tickle of his chest hairs against my breasts and hard nipples, the power of his arms and torso on top of mine. I buried my nose in his neck, inhaling his scent, licking and sucking the soft throb of his pulse point.
He groaned and moved his hands to my waist, quickly slipping his fingers through the elasticity of my skirt’s waistband, pulling it down with the strings of my panties, stripping me bare in one go. His hands returned up the outsides of my legs. He kissed and licked his way along my inner thighs, from one knee to my pelvis, then repeated the process on the other side, teasing and nipping and licking and kissing his way. Then he slid two fingers into my wet lower lips, spreading my juices over them and circling my risen clit. Finally, he wrapped his arms around my thighs and buried his face in my open hot center. His mouth landed directly over my clit, and his tongue swept from below before circling it and then—god!—sucking on it. I sucked in air, my head thrown back, and I think I mewled.
He didn’t stop. He was lapping at me, circling and sucking and sipping and nipping. I lost track of the plot; I was all sensation. My hips must have been bucking, because I heard him say, “Stop it. Don’t move, Erin.”
Jarred from the moment and confused about what was happening, I lifted my head to find his eyes hard on my face. His were dilated, fierce, his breath coming in deep pulls. He was all angles and flush with pumping blood. When he caught my lost look, he growled, “No movement, baby. Just feel.”
And his face returned to my center, and his mouth to his work. He had moved his arms so his hands were on top of my inner thighs, holding them down to the sides, pressing them into the bed so I was pinned and there was nowhere for me to go. Sensation overtook me again, the feel of that tongue, those lips and teeth, the licking, the circling, the thrusting, the sucking. God, the sucking.
I could feel my body tension and awareness rise exponentially even as it cut out all other aspects of my surroundings. My every nerve-ending was coiled in heat and desire and anticipatory contraction. My arms were reaching over my head, hands grasping at the sheets, the pillows, anything, nothing. My head was nearly tipped back onto my crown, and I gasped for each breath. And in a moment, or five, or twenty, or a hundred, the world exploded. My body shook, my every sensation only pleasure. I was a flood of euphoria: drowning, filling, cascading, rising, falling, floating, drifting, shivering, and spreading. My entire being was bliss. It was like nothing—nothing—I’d ever felt before. It took me out of this world.
When I finally became aware of Torch again, he was watching me, still from his position halfway down my body. His face was serious, his eyes still dark with desire but also shining with satisfaction. “Good, baby. Let’s get you there again.” I’d never come like that before. I didn’t think I could again. But if he wanted to try, I was certainly not going to stop him.
But this time, I wanted him with me. That was too good not to share.
“Torch, let me touch you.”
The left side of his mouth tipped up in a darling half smile. “Yeah, Erin. You can touch me.” He really was in an accommodating mood.
And he stood up, moved his hands to his belt to unbuckle it, and then ripped open the fly. I crawled backward on the bed, centering myself with my head near the pillows, and lay there waiting while he shucked his boots and socks, and then his jeans and boxers. He tossed a foil packet on the bed that he must have snagged from a pocket and stood still a moment, looking at me, letting me look at him.
He was so beautiful: so tall, with such smooth skin, that gorgeous athletic build covered in defined but not overwhelming musculature, the slight imperfections of a rugged masculine face dominated by his stunning green eyes and their ridiculously long dark lashes, the soft mop of silky black hair, the light coverage of it on his chest, his six-pack abs, the V at his hips, and the happy trail leading directly down to his amazingly long, thick, hard cock. He truly was a work of art. I was appreciative.
I’d been looking my fill for several moments before I realized he was full-on smiling at me, watching my eyes now. I had thought he was checking me out like I had been checking him out, but then I realized he’d just been watching me check him out. I blushed and bit down on my lower lip.
His grin expanded even more. “Hey, baby, I’m glad you like me. But you said you wanted to touch me, so I’m just waiting for you. Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to come here.”
Obligingly he climbed up on the bed and spread himself on his side, raised up on an elbow for leverage. His upper leg shifted my legs apart and then rested between them. His available hand smoothed my chest and shoulder blade, and he slowly drifted it down to direct my arm toward his body. I was thinking exactly along those same lines, and I eagerly returned my gaze to join my hand in a mutual focus on his big, hard, impressively upright cock. Damn, he was big. Long, and thick, and smooth, and pretty. Very few cocks are pretty, I think. But his was actually pretty, in a very seriously masculine way. It perfectly matched the largeness and perfection of the rest of him. I was fascinated.
I grasped him firmly at the base and found my fingers didn’t quite close around him, so I used my other hand to assist. With both hands encircling him, I drew up along the length, squeezing him and watching as he seemed to throb and grow with excitement at the pressure and attention.
I glanced up at his eyes to check his reaction. He was looking down at his cock in my hands, and his face looked all angles and desire.
There was a drop of precum at the tip, and I wanted to taste it, and I wanted his head in my mouth. I wanted to suck on him. I scooched myself down the bed and flipped myself between his legs as he rolled to his back and propped his head up on a pillow for a better angle to watch. I smiled and dipped my head to the tip of him, then licked the precum off the slit, dragging my tongue across it exaggeratedly.
He groaned, and when the tip of my tongue had reached its end I let my lips rest on him, then opened them wide and sucked the entire head into my mouth at once, spreading that drop around inside, and I swallowed.
As I moved my hands back down his shaft and then pulled them back up with firm pressure, I circled my tongue around him, then sucked some more, before drawing myself back, my lips firmly rolling over the sides of the head until he popped out.
“Do that again.”
I complied, happily. Only this time, I didn’t stop.
There was no way I could hope to fit all of him in my mouth, but I was determined to find out how much of it I could, and I proceeded to suck and encircle and rub and pull and rise and fall for the next several minutes.
He had grabbed a firm hold of my hair at the back of my neck and was shifting his hips up and down to match my movements over him, and he was watching me the whole time, and finally he found what he wanted, as his careful thrusts brought him to the very back of my throat.
I kept sucking, willing my gag reflex to relax. My senses caught up in his taste, his beauty, his passion, his need. I was even more wet myself, completely turned on and in tune with him.
He kept repeating, “You’re so beautiful. Beautiful. You’re beautiful. Yes, baby, Erin, you’re so beautiful. Yes. Yes, yes, oh baby, oh yes. Yes.”
I felt beautiful. I continued pulling on him, pushing on him, licking, encircling, sucking, and sucking more. Opening to him, rocking on him, feeling his need and feeding from it.
His pace picked up, his need driving more, his hand gripping my hair urging me to speed up and keep sucking him down. I sucked harder, faster. I felt him tense and contract and push faster and thrust harder, and suddenly he came with an explosion of breath and my mouth filled with his cum.
I swallowed it down, and it kept coming and I kept swallowing, now easing up on all pressure, just swallowing until I had got it all down. His body relaxed and his grip on me eased, and his hand brushed my cheek and my hair in a soft caress.
And I looked up at his face when I released my mouth from the head of his cock, and he lazily smiled and said, “You are so beautiful.”
I brushed one more soft kiss to the tip of his cock, and he pulled me up into his arms. I lay on top of him for many moments as he drifted and finally came back to himself.
My nose was buried under his chin, and our bodies were a bit sticky with sweat, but we were in no rush to move things along. We had all night. We were finally in a bed. And things were good. Things were really, really good.
We drifted for a long while. I had settled on my side, tucked into his side. He had one arm around my back, the other lightly roaming and caressing me, soothingly and teasingly all at once, and I knew we were not done. Eventually he slowed down and lifted his hand to my face, tipping my chin so he could catch my eyes with his own.
“Erin, I need us to be really clear and on the same page about what we were talkin’ about earlier. I know you think you gotta take care of shit with Danny Fletch. But I’m tellin’ you, I need you to step down. I get that you want to be involved with takin’ him down. I see you got reason, and you deserve to have a piece of him. But this is seriously bigger than that—I haven’t figured it all out. But until I do, you have to promise me you’ll drop your plan, whatever it is, and lay low while I sort it. You got me? You with me on this? You gonna step down?”
I held his gaze for a long minute, reading his eyes, which were holding mine openly, deeply, seriously. I said the only thing that made sense. “Okay, Torch. I’ll step down.”
He practically squeezed the life out of me then, as he tucked his face into my neck and pulled me back on top of him. I squealed a little to get him to ease up. He laughed, and did.
“Good, babe. That’s the right choice.” He pulled back from me, and I rested my forearms above his shoulders on the bed so I could look into his face. “I promise you, Erin, I’ll let you know when somethin’ is gonna go down, and I’ll keep you informed when it’s safe for you to be. But I’m keeping you safe, first and foremost. You gotta understand, I got a stake in this, too. So I won’t drop it. It’s priority for me, too. It will be sorted, and Danny Fletch will go down. But you are not doin’ this alone anymore, and you are not in charge of the action. Okay? I am. We clear?”
“Yeah, we’re clear, Torch. But I don’t fully get it. What’s your stake in it? I mean, outside of me, what’s going on that you gotta figure out, that I don’t know?”
“Baby, I don’t wanna talk about that, not right now, not tonight. I’ll tell you sometime, but for tonight it’s been enough, yeah? Can we give it a rest and just be, now?”
“Yeah, Torch, we can do that. We can give it a rest. No more tonight.” And I offered him a little sad smile.
Then he kissed me, softly and sweetly, and his tongue slipped between my lips and met my own, and they danced together lazily and briefly. And soon after, we drifted easily into sleep.