The Season to Sin

by Clare Connelly

  ‘How do you feel?’ He asks the question as his fingers slide into the waistband of my underpants, finding my thong and loosening it, pushing it down my thighs.

  My arms lift and wrap around his neck, my fingers tangling in the thick dark hair at his nape.

  ‘Doc?’ He drags his mouth down to my breast, rolling his tongue over my nipple, drawing me into his mouth so that I arch my back and cry out all at once. I feel his smile against me and have no way of verifying that my feeling is correct because my eyes are squeezed shut, allowing the deluge of sensations to ransack my body.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Good,’ I groan into the room, digging my fingernails into the sheets. How long has it been since a man has kissed me like this? Longer than five years. Five years since perfunctory, horrible, terrifying lovemaking with Aaron—so much longer since my body has been feted in this manner. He touches me as though I am made of porcelain and might break, and yet his kisses are savage and wild, thrilling me with their intensity and desperate need.

  ‘No headache?’

  ‘No!’ And I no longer want him to treat me like porcelain. ‘I’m fine!’ I say the words loudly and push at his chest, wrapping my legs around him as I topple him backwards. On top of him, I have a thrill of something like power and pleasure and it dances through my system, fascinating my nerve endings.

  I need him, need him so badly I cannot think straight. I find his jeans and push them down, just low enough to expose his dick. It’s so hard and bloody huge that I have a momentary burst of doubt about what we’re about to do. I try not to make comparisons to Aaron—it wouldn’t be fair. No comparison to Noah seems fair, for any man.

  I am so desperate for him, I ache to feel him between my legs, hot and strong inside me. He’s disposed of my underwear and I hover over him, my fingers finding his cock and circling it tentatively at first and then more confidently as he groans. ‘Fuuuuck...’ The word is long and slow, the vowel extended, the tone dark.

  ‘That’s my plan.’ I grin, lifting up and taking him inside me. Just his tip at first, and then he thrusts into me. It’s been so long and he’s so big that I feel almost as though it’s my first time. I have forgotten how it feels to be so completely joined with someone. Have I ever felt this?

  He holds my hips and anchors me so that I am on top while he is still somehow in control. He draws me down his length, my wetness slicking him, and then he holds me still while he thrusts into me, powerful and perfect. I am a bundle of feelings.

  I tilt my head back, cresting along the wave of pleasure that his body offers, and when his hands run over my stomach, towards my breasts, his fingertips finding my nipples, I cry out—it’s more pleasure than I have ever known. I am frightened and empowered all at once.

  ‘It’s so good,’ I moan, lifting my hips now and trying to make him feel what I am, but he grips my hips tight and tumbles me back onto the bed, his eyes clashing with mine, daring me to argue.

  His removal is an agony of extreme proportions. He pulls away from me and I push up onto my elbows, prepared to chase him—prepared to chase him to the ends of the earth if necessary.

  He strides to his bedside table and pulls something small and metallic out and it is the first time I recognise that I haven’t even thought of a condom. I would have had sex with him; I would have welcomed his release if he had offered it, without hesitation.

  It is frightening enough to draw me out of the moment. ‘Oh, my God.’

  ‘What?’ He’s worried for me. It colours his expression and a drum bangs somewhere near my heart. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No, I just can’t believe I didn’t think of protection.’

  His smile is my crack cocaine. ‘I guess you really wanted this.’ And he pushes back inside me, now with him on top, and it feels new and different all over again. Doubts have no space in the field of pleasure; I am simply a ball of nerve endings and they are delighting in his nearness.

  I realise that he was holding back before; perhaps worried about the complications of being in me without a barrier. Now he thrusts hard, possessing me as though it is his path to happiness and joy, as though I am his anchor point.

  The wave collects me and every thrust brings me higher upon it, taking me to its peak, rolling me in its crest and dumping me onto the next wave, dragging me higher and higher until I am so close to the stars I swear I could reach out and touch them. My fingers drag over the sheets, but I feel celestial magic within my grasp and then I hear a noise, a sharp, loud, agonised cry—it takes me a moment to realise it is the sound of my own ecstasy, wrapping around us both. It takes me a moment to realise that an orgasm is wrenching me apart, one delightful sob at a time.

  And then he is with me, his fingers laced through mine, his body racked with the same grip of release, our cries combined, our breath fast, our bodies coated in sweat despite the coolness of the morning. He drops on top of me afterwards and I wrap my arms around him instinctively; my legs too. As though I am afraid he will withdraw and I will lose him—and this—even when I know that I must. That it is the natural conclusion to what we are and what we’ve done.

  I can’t think about that yet.

  His breath is heavy and his body heavier still. I stay there, my arms wrapped around him, until he is unbearably heavy and then I shift a little, sliding sideways at the same moment I realise that he has fallen asleep. I wriggle out completely, my eyes searching his face, seeing the beauty in his sleep and recognising that it is, nonetheless, a tortured, unsettled repose. No rest for Noah. Not really.

  What demons drive his tormented nights? What devils demand this fractured sleep of him? I want to know—not only because I want to help but because I need to understand. He is a puzzle that I suddenly, desperately ache to complete. He is an answer to a question I don’t know how to pose.

  I watch him sleep for a long time. At least ten minutes. I wait for him to wake, as he says he does, but his eyelids are flickering like moths near a flame and I suppose then that he is fast asleep. Knowing what a rare commodity this is for him, I dismiss the very idea of waking him.

  Besides, I need space and time to process what I’ve done. To acknowledge this development and allow it into my being—to allow this to make up a part of my truth now.

  I step out of the bed silently. There is nothing to remove from the mezzanine but myself. All my clothes and personal items remain where I left them, or where he left them—I’m still so foggy on the details of last night.

  I creep down the stairs like a burglar post-heist, and it is only once I discover my shirt and trousers, neatly folded on the kitchen bench, that I realise I’ve left my underpants in his bed somewhere.

  I look guiltily towards the mezzanine but think better of retrieving them. I plan to take a cab straight home—better that I don’t wake him for a pair of briefs.

  I dress quickly and, at the door, take one last look in the direction of where he’s sleeping. I can hear his breathing, steady and rhythmic. I close my eyes, inhale and allow myself to imagine that I am still there with him, his arm perhaps casually thrown over my body, his hair flopping onto the pillow.

  With a shake of my head to clear the seductive image, I take the irreversible step of leaving his home, of pulling the door shut firmly behind me. I am now on this side of Noah’s world and he on the other.

  We are worlds apart.

  * * *

  I wake as the door clicks shut, but I don’t move. I know instinctively what the door signals and I fight every residual sensation of having been left. I feel every single closed door. And Holly is now a part of that.

  I stretch my arms and roll over, keeping my eyes shut. Not in the futile pursuit of sleep so much as an attempt to replay what we’ve just shared. I can smell her in my bed; I can hear her in my bed. Her fervent, vocal pleasure. Her surprise at the orgasm.

  It was painfully obvious that s
he hadn’t felt like that before and I am glad for my sake, and sorry for hers.

  Good sex is a gift; everyone should experience it. Is there anything that is more natural and more important in life than the body’s ability to pleasure another?

  I see her face again as she fell apart, her eyes rolled back in her head, her mouth clamped shut, her nipples hard beads thrust forward, her skin goosed all over...and an animalistic surge of power throbs through me.

  I did that to her.

  And I’m going to do it again.

  * * *

  I don’t know if I expected to hear from him. I know he knows how to email me. I know he has my number. And as Sunday bleeds into Monday, which gives way to Tuesday, I have to face the fact that perhaps he is choosing not to contact me.

  I have always been analytical, perhaps too much so, and in the last three days I have found myself going over every single detail of our time together, reliving his words, touch, mood. I wonder at the way we came together, at the euphoric sense of heaven that overtook me, and the way I stole out of his home.

  By Thursday, I am contemplating calling him. Worrying for him. Wondering if he is okay. It is absurd and stupid and I have learned not to let a man weaken me—I am not who I was five, six, seven years ago.

  If Noah doesn’t want to call me, if all he wanted was one night with me, then it is better to learn that truth now than in a year’s time. Right?

  I tell myself I am grateful that it only got this far, and I congratulate myself for the escape from possible disaster. I focus on what is right in front of me, and what matters. I concentrate on Christmas and Ivy and the fact she’s asked me about her father for the first time in her life—this is a day I have dreaded. I have no ready-made answer to respond to her question. I don’t know how to discuss Aaron with her.

  Old-fashioned platitudes, like We both love you very much, but we were better living apart, don’t seem to apply here, seeing as he tried to kill me when I was pregnant with her.

  Instead, I focus on the fact her father is a beautiful musician and put on one of his CDs for her to listen to, even though it sends shivers of panic rioting through my body.

  I hate his music.

  I hate him.

  On Friday afternoon, it has been a week since I saw Noah Moore. My heart drops at the thought that it’s simply the first of many weeks I must tick off in this fashion. I know from experience that it will get easier—that I will become more adept at sidestepping this ache of need.

  Besides, I took a step out of my comfort zone and I’m glad for that. I’m glad to have slept with him. I walked into it with my eyes wide open and I got what I wanted.

  As if on cue, heat floods my body and my nipples tingle with remembered pleasure. I smile.

  It was an incredible night. Morning. Whatever.

  I tidy my desk, sort my files, answer emails and, near seven o’clock, I go to close my computer down. Out of nowhere, in my mind I see Noah. I see him as he was—so beautiful, so strong, so handsome, so mysterious. I remember the tattoo on his shoulder, the one that frightened me and weakened my knees and stirred my gut all at once.

  What had he called it?

  Malingee?

  I can’t do justice to the way he pronounced it, but it was something like that.

  I open a browser and type Malernguy into the computer. I get a Danish computer company. That’s not right. I try three more variations on spelling before I hit on something that sounds close enough.

  Malingee: an Australian Aboriginal spirit, both nocturnal and malignant, that terrified humans. While it didn’t seek to engage them, it would ruthlessly slay any who crossed its path, using its stone dagger to kill. A terrifying spectre.

  A frisson starts at the base of my skull, tingling and pulsing and running down my spine like wildfire, spreading unease and doubts anew.

  Why would Noah have this tattoo on his shoulder?

  Dozens of new questions open up inside me. There is so much about him I don’t know—so much I will never know, if last week was the end for us.

  The thought is like a detonation and it fires me to stand. I shut my computer down and grab my bag, locking up my office.

  I am reminded then of closing Noah’s door as I left his apartment—and I wish I could go back in time and stay, as I had contemplated. I wish I hadn’t left.

  I want him—all the more because I have felt him move inside me and the reality outstripped every single one of my fantasies.

  Once, surely, just wasn’t enough.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I SEE HER the moment she steps out onto the street, her hair pulled into a bun that I instantly imagine loosening with my fingers, pulling free and tangling around her shoulders. She’s wearing a cream trench coat belted at the waist and, from this distance, it looks like dark pants that hug her slim legs. Legs that have wrapped around me; legs that I haven’t yet tasted—remiss of me. I have been fantasising about running my tongue down her calves, finding all her sweetest spots and tormenting her with them.

  Her head is bent; she doesn’t see me. I wonder where she’s going?

  Has she been thinking of me?

  She hasn’t called. She hasn’t emailed. Did I expect her to? Has she been waiting to hear from me? I don’t chase women. I don’t chase anyone. But damn it if I didn’t want to turn up at Holly’s office Monday evening and drag her back to my bed. Ditto Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and, finally, here I am. Telling myself that having waited a week I have proved to myself that she is as disposable as everyone else in my life.

  A familiar sense of distance calms my pulse. It doesn’t matter what she’s been thinking or wanting; I don’t care.

  This isn’t about anything except the present—and the present we can give each other. I have no expectations of her and she sure as hell doesn’t of me, or she would have tried to contact me.

  That’s perfect. There’s no need for my chest to be feeling like this—Holly Scott-Leigh is different to my usual lovers, but she’s the same in many ways. I can manage her, this, us, whatever the hell I’m doing.

  And I did sleep better after she’d left. For the first time since Julianne died, I was able to get several hours of sleep in a row. Perhaps Holly did that. Maybe fucking her worked magic on parts of me distinct from my cock.

  She looks towards me as she crosses the street, but it is a cursory inspection, only to make sure she is safe to go, and she doesn’t look towards me long enough to recognise me. She drops her head down and surges forward. As she reaches the footpath, I step off my bike.

  A thrill of anticipation is unmistakable, and when I step forward the thrill trebles in intensity.

  She has been abused and she is wary—perhaps it’s a wariness she’ll always feel? The idea of that rubs me completely the wrong way, but I shelve my reaction to better observe hers. She looks at me, her expression confused and hurt and then angry and, finally, cold, colder than ice, as she lifts an elegant brow and crosses her arms.

  ‘Noah.’ My name is a dismissal, not a hello.

  She’s pissed with me.

  Fascinating.

  ‘Holly.’ I grin, enjoying the way my cavalier response needles her. I told you, I like needling her and the more I do it, the more I realise that.

  She doesn’t know what to say. She’s looking at me as though she’s trying to find words and I offer none; I simply watch the play of emotions as they constrict her face.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks finally. Unmistakably cold now.

  ‘What do you think?’ I reach behind me for a helmet and hold it out to her. She makes no effort to take it. Something like iron wraps around my chest.

  ‘A booty call?’ She is outraged at that, angling her face away from me, showing only her cold profile.

  ‘Are you okay?’ The question is surprising to me. I think it’s the fi
rst time I’ve evinced concern for anyone’s emotional state, besides Gabe’s perhaps. I’m not into dating; I don’t do it often. If I see a woman, it’s a light, casual affair. A few nights. A bit of fun.

  I don’t ask them if they’re ‘okay’. I don’t hold my breath while waiting for the answer, as I am now, desperately needing to hear that she is.

  ‘Fine.’ The crisp answer shows she doesn’t care that it’s a first for me. She draws in a breath and turns back to face me; I feel as though I’ve been slammed in the chest with a stack of knives. She’s so beautiful and somehow I’d forgotten, even in the thirty seconds since she spun her face away from me. ‘Anyway—’ I hear the finality in the word ‘—I was just about to head home.’

  I narrow my eyes and nod. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’

  ‘Noah...’

  A car goes by, Christmas carols playing loudly, and she waits until it has passed.

  ‘I don’t know what you want from me.’ It’s simple and complicated. Terrifying and empowering.

  The problem is, I don’t know what I want from her either. Besides the fact that she’s an addiction that’s spilled into my bloodstream, I know only that I need her now. Here. Not here, because she deserves better than that, but the first place we can get to with a modicum of privacy.

  ‘Don’t you?’ It’s a gruff reply that has her tilting her head forward.

  There’s a look of defiance in her eyes. Surrender too. ‘I guess it’s exactly what I want from you.’

  * * *

  We didn’t have the ‘your place or mine’ conversation, but I’m glad he’s taking us back to his apartment. I was drunk when he brought me here before, but in the morning I realised we were in Bermondsey and his home was actually a converted wharf building right on the river. Completely hollowed out at some point, leaving the open-plan design he obviously prefers.