So I didn’t move and I didn’t speak. I kept my hand on the back of her neck, though, caressing the soft, vulnerable place with my thumb in reassurance.
‘I always wanted to be a doctor,’ she said after a very long moment. ‘Ever since I was a kid. Gran told me not to be so stupid, that only smart people got to be doctors and I wasn’t smart enough. And besides, where did I think money for college would come from? The sky? No, she said I needed to be practical. Kids who had a mom in jail didn’t get to be doctors, and anyway, that was getting above myself. What was wrong with a good, honest, blue-collar job?’
I said nothing, just stroked her and let her say her piece.
‘I was a serious kid,’ she went on. ‘I liked books and encyclopaedias and facts. I liked bugs and doing experiments. I liked mysteries. I wasn’t much of a girly girl and I think my grandmother didn’t like that. She made me help her out with cooking and cleaning, and learning how to “keep house”, because that’s what I needed to learn, not all this science nonsense. She took me in and brought me up after Mom went to jail, so I did what she said. And if she thought I wasn’t smart enough to be a doctor then maybe I wasn’t. But then I got to high school and I did well, got good grades, and I started to think that maybe I wasn’t so stupid after all.’
‘Well, you’re not,’ I said. ‘Far from it.’ She didn’t need my validation but I wanted to say it all the same. For the record.
She lifted a shoulder. ‘I told Gran that I was going to apply for college, try for a scholarship, and I showed her my grades. I thought she’d be surprised at them, that she’d be pleased for me, but she wasn’t. She was only angry. She said I was ridiculous. That I wouldn’t be able to do it. That I couldn’t leave her, and what kind of repayment for taking care of me all these years was that? Especially when she hadn’t even wanted me in the first place.’
The bleak words hung in the silence and the hot, shifting emotion in my chest clenched tighter. I felt anger on her behalf as well as a need to comfort her, to ease her obvious pain. And it was clear that she was in pain, and who wouldn’t be, after being told that they’d never been wanted?
I let go of the back of her neck and eased my arms around her, drawing her soft, curvy body against my chest. She resisted at first and then gradually let me cuddle her close, relaxing, her cheek hot against my chest, her breath warm on my skin.
‘Sometimes I think her dementia was on purpose,’ she said, her voice softer. ‘That she was trying to find a way to make me stay with her. She didn’t want to take care of me, but now she wants me to take care of her. And I have to, because there’s no one else to do it, and I can’t afford a retirement home for her. And so I work for Strangers because it pays fucking well, and so that one day I’ll earn enough money to get Gran looked after and then I can go to college.’
There was steel in her voice, a determination that I found fascinating, not to mention unbearably attractive. I admired people who rose to a challenge, who didn’t let it defeat them. Eli was one of those people. He’d gone through hell after he’d been burned, and yet he hadn’t let it either defeat him nor define him.
My sister, Vesta, had also had her difficulties, yet she’d gone on to find her own success in the tattoo business she’d started up.
Are you sure you should be enjoying Maggie quite so much?
Why the hell shouldn’t I? It wasn’t as if we were in a relationship or anything. This was only for one night and then I was going to let her go. The end.
If you can let her go...
Almost reflexively I tightened my arms around her, holding her warmth close to me as if my body was determined to make a liar out of me.
‘Determined,’ I murmured, pushing away the other thoughts, ‘and compassionate. Both excellent qualities for a doctor to have. You’ll achieve it, sweetheart, of that I have no doubt.’
She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t be angry with Gran. It’s not her fault she had to look after me when Mom got sent to prison.’
‘Are you angry with her?’
‘Yes,’ Maggie said reluctantly. ‘I didn’t want to be, but I am.’
‘Okay, so your gran looked after you and fed you and clothed you.’ I ran one hand down her spine and back up again, stroking her gently. ‘But she didn’t have to make you feel like shit about it. You don’t take that kind of thing out on a kid.’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘And you don’t need to beat yourself up for your own choices either,’ I went on.
Maggie shifted uncomfortably. ‘I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are. Calling yourself a whore.’
A breath escaped her. ‘That’s what Gran would say. She doesn’t know where I work. I haven’t told her. She’d be...’
‘It doesn’t matter what she thinks.’ And this time I did reach for her small, stubborn chin, tilting her face up again, not because I wanted to see it, but because I wanted her to see mine. To look into my eyes and see the truth of what I was trying to say.
She resisted but I forced her head back, her gaze meeting mine with obvious reluctance. I held it. ‘Her opinion doesn’t matter,’ I reiterated. ‘All that matters is how you feel about it. Are you okay with what you do? Are you ashamed of it?’
She blinked and a glint of that steely determination appeared in the depths of her dark eyes. ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m not. It helps people. It gives them a connection that many of them have never had. Some of them just want to be held, to have someone listen to them, to feel like they’re being heard and being cared for. It’s not even about the sex most of the time.’ She stared back at me, challenging. ‘How can I be ashamed of helping people?’
My chest felt tight. Caring woman. Compassionate woman. I admired her for that, yet at the same time what she’d said made me uncomfortable. Because was that how she saw me? As some poor, lonely bastard who just wanted a connection? Who wanted to be held like a child in need of comforting?
I wasn’t sure what was worse: her knowing about my sight and pitying me for it or her not knowing and me being an object of her pity anyway.
Who cares how she sees you? It’s only one night, after all.
That was true. Besides, I’d make sure that pity was the last thing on her mind whenever she looked at me.
I leaned down and brushed my mouth over hers. ‘You’re going to make a fantastic doctor, you know that?’
The tense look on her face eased. ‘I’m certainly martyr-ish enough to be one.’
I smiled. ‘I meant that you’re compassionate. You care a lot about people, even when you’re angry with them. Even when they don’t deserve it. It takes a big heart for that.’
She sighed. ‘Maybe I’m just a door mat.’
‘Seriously?’ I laughed. ‘A door mat would have meekly accepted whatever her grandmother said and taken that decent, honest, blue-collar job and put away her dreams of a career in medicine. A door mat would definitely not have taken a job providing company for strangers so she could earn money, not only to look after her grandmother, but so she could also go to med school.’
Maggie looked at me a second, though what she was searching for I had no clue. Then suddenly she smiled. ‘I don’t know why you’d want to make me feel better about this. But I really like that you do, because you have.’
I had no idea why I wanted to either, yet I liked that I had. I liked it very much. And I let myself have that as well—pleasure in the knowledge that I made a difference to her, that I could help her feel good not just physically, but emotionally as well.
I stroked her back again. ‘I can make you feel better in other ways too. If you’re feeling recovered, that is.’
Heat flamed in her eyes. ‘That depends on what you had in mind.’
‘This,’ I said, and then I pushed her down onto the couch cushions on her back and stretched myself over her, pushing her thighs apart with my hips, loving the fe
el of her warm skin sliding over mine. I put my hands down on either side of her head and looked down into the darkness of her eyes. ‘Food now or after? And, just so you know, the correct answer is after...’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Magdalen
HE WAS SO stunningly attractive like this, but not because of how easily he’d handled me—his strength so obvious as he’d pushed me onto my back—or how glorious his bare flesh had felt against mine.
No, it was because of the teasing glitter in his eyes and the note of rough demand in his voice, despite the attempt at lightness. Because of the hungry way he was looking at me, as if I was all he wanted.
My heart thumped hard behind my breast bone, the warm, reassurance he’d given me before gradually getting hotter and more intense.
I’d told him my secret about med school, which wasn’t something I told anyone these days, not after Gran had been so scathing about it. I hadn’t even told Vesta. I wasn’t even sure why I’d told him. Maybe I’d been orgasm-drunk or something, because I’d thought, What the hell? Why not? He’d asked me why I kept working for Strangers, so why shouldn’t I tell him the truth?
When I’d mentioned my clients and how I viewed myself as helping them, I’d caught a flash of something sharp in his eyes—anger, maybe—and I had the sudden realisation that perhaps I shouldn’t have said that they were lonely people searching for a connection. That perhaps Trajan would assume I thought the same about him.
But the truth was that, although Trajan was a client, I’d never seen him in quite the same way as I saw my other clients, and that was probably due to our intense attraction. He was so gorgeous, so confident, and not at all like the lonely businessmen I usually dealt with. I even wondered a couple of times why a man like him would pay for company, that surely he must have more than he knew what to do with, but then I’d dismissed the thought. It wasn’t my place to wonder why and it presupposed things about a person that maybe weren’t true. My job was to fill the need, not question why it was there in the first place.
Trajan hadn’t laughed when I’d told him about med school, though. He’d seemed to find my desire for a career in medicine perfectly understandable, and not only that but achievable too. He didn’t think it was a ridiculous thing for a whore to want more for herself, and he’d been far too sharp about that word.
He’d spotted my anger. He’d known that there was a part of me that judged myself for my choices. The part of me that was probably my gran’s voice telling me that I shouldn’t get above myself, that I shouldn’t want more. That I should be grateful for what I had. That selling myself for money was a terrible thing to do.
Except Trajan hadn’t judged me and he’d seemed to understand that there was something profound I could give to lonely people. And that I liked that aspect of it. That there was no shame in wanting to give people a few hours of connection.
Even if you can never have that yourself.
Yet it was hard to think that what I was experiencing right now with him wasn’t akin to that in some way. Because I certainly felt connected to him.
I lay beneath him, pinned to the couch cushions by his muscular body, and surrounded in the scent of pine and aroused male. His skin felt smooth and so hot, the muscles of his biceps and chest standing out as he held himself above me. He flexed his hips, sliding the ridge of his rapidly hardening cock along the slick flesh between my thighs in a slow, sensual movement. I shuddered as pleasure rippled through me, lifting my hands to the hard chest above me and stroking it.
His gaze was fixed intensely on mine and he watched me as he flexed his hips again, sending yet more shocks of pleasure through me as his shaft rubbed against my clit.
I gasped, arching up, closing my thighs around his lean waist, rocking against him as I dug my nails into his skin. ‘Don’t stop,’ I whispered. ‘Please.’
‘Just for that...’ He pushed himself away from me, wickedness glinting in his eyes.
‘Trajan,’ I groaned. ‘I wasn’t trying to top from the bottom. I just wanted—’
‘I know what you wanted. But first things first.’ He leaned over the side of the couch, feeling around for something. And then he sat up, moving down one end of the couch as he flicked open his wallet and extracted a condom packet.
Oh. Okay, then. I, of course, carried some with me, but my bag was across the room and there was no way I was moving. I debated offering to put it on him, but watching his firm, decisive movements and the way he rolled the latex down over himself, one strong, capable hand curled around his cock, was so unspeakably sexy that I didn’t.
He must look magnificent when he was giving himself pleasure. God, I wanted to watch him do it so badly.
‘Come here,’ he ordered in that peremptory way he had.
I shifted over to him, not even thinking of not obeying, and before I knew what was happening he’d flipped me over onto my back and was settling himself between my thighs once more. The light was above me, shining directly onto my face, and I had to half-close my eyes against the brightness. He definitely had a thing about making sure I was in the light. Why was that?
Then the question dissipated like smoke as he pushed one hand between my thighs, stroking my clit gently before sliding a finger through my slick flesh, testing the entrance to my body.
‘Wet for me, sweetheart?’ His voice had lowered in a deep purr. ‘I like it. And so wet too.’ His finger eased deeper and I gasped with growing pleasure, my hips lifting to his hand.
‘More,’ I gasped.
‘Oh, yes, definitely.’ His finger disappeared and I felt the head of his cock pushing against me, into me, stretching me until I groaned at the feel of him.
‘Trajan,’ I whispered, shuddering. ‘Yes, my God, yes.’
He lowered his head, his mouth covering mine as he eased in further. One hand slid beneath my butt, lifting me, angling me so he could slide even deeper, making me shudder and shake.
His tongue was in my mouth, exploring me slowly and with care, even as he drove his cock deeper inside me. The combination was devastating.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, trying to get closer, my hands on his shoulders, gripping him tighter. The pleasure astonished me and I moaned in my throat, kissing him back with desperation.
He paused deep inside me, his weight pinning me to the cushions. He felt so good, and the pleasure was so acute and sharp as a knife. My nails dug into his skin, my thighs tightening around his waist. I’d never wanted anyone to move as badly as I wanted him to move right in this moment.
I bit his lower lip, arching my back, lifting my hips, but he just stayed there, a hot, heavy weight.
‘Trajan,’ I moaned desperately. ‘Please.’
He lifted his head, his hands pushing my hair back from my face. ‘Shh... Let me see you.’ His voice sounded roughened and raw. ‘Open your eyes for me.’
I obeyed, letting the light in. His compelling face was above me, the expression on it taut with hunger and something else I couldn’t quite identify. His eyes had darkened to midnight again, a dark, depthless desire burning in them. He said nothing, only watched me as he flexed his hips, and I felt the drag of his cock sliding out and then back in, slow and sensual.
Ecstasy rippled through me like the Northern Lights in a dark sky, bright and glittering and magnificent.
I groaned with the intensity of it and he didn’t stop. He kept on with that slow, sensual, dragging movement, building the pleasure layer by aching layer, watching me all the while.
I clawed at him, tried to urge him on, but all he did was whisper soothing things to me, quietening me with strokes of his hands, even as his cock kept up with that slow, merciless rhythm.
His control must have been insanely good, because I was steadily losing it. Especially when he adjusted his angle to hit my clit every time he thrust in, scattering hot, bright sparks of pleasure everywhere.
All I could do was lie there and take it, writhing in his grip as the tension inside me drew tighter and tighter.
Sobs collected in my throat and I put my head back on the couch cushions as the slow rhythm he set started to become unbearable. I was shaking so hard, I felt as if I was going to come apart, the pleasure so acute it was going to break me for sure. Yet I wanted to come apart, I wanted to dissolve, I wanted to break, and I wanted his arms around me when I did, holding me tight.
I moaned his name, pleading with him, begging him to give me what I was desperate for. His hands soothed and stroked, gentling me, even as the maddening flex of his hips drove me insane.
I was trembling, covered in perspiration, the slick slide of his flesh against mine making everything sharper. He kissed me, nipping and licking at my mouth, then further down my neck and my throat, making a meal out of me.
And I began to come apart, losing myself in the blinding heat of his mouth and the drift of his hands, in the relentless drive of his cock inside me. And, just when I thought I couldn’t bear it any more, that it was all getting too much, he did something with his hips, his cock rubbing up against something deep inside me, and I felt the orgasm began to bear down. I fought it, half-afraid of being annihilated by it, crushed by the sheer intensity of all that sensation, yet it came for me all the same.
Except it wasn’t annihilation in the end but something more, something purer and far more beautiful. It filled me like light, like the promise of heaven, like sunshine, filling me up and radiating out, and instead of shattering I dissolved into it, became one with it. A bright, shining ecstasy that made me open my eyes and look up into his. And hold him as he became one with it too.
I didn’t know how long I lay there afterwards, his weight heavy on me, reassuring and hot. And I just wanted to lie there like that, my arms around him, the strangest thoughts running around in my head.
This must be how it would feel to be with someone, to be in a relationship. To hold them and have them hold you in return. And for sex to be more than just the easing of a physical desire but to provide something emotionally too. Closeness. Real intimacy.
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