by April Lust
“Is that, like, a medicine thing?”
“Yeah, I mean, okay most people know the caduceus, which has two snakes, rather than the single one. It is a common symbol of the people who take the Hippocratic oath and all that. You see it all over medical facilities and similar places. The rod and the snake are associated with an ancient Greek god of healing and medicine. The dual snake, with the wings and all that, was made for the US Medical Core, and got really popular, despite the fact that this is the more historically correct version.”
“Why?” he asked. He put a single arm around her back and pulled her unto his lap. He was still soft, the loose satiny skin of his masculinity pressed against her still damp folds.
“Smart people make mistakes, too.”
He grinned and sat up, placing a single kiss along the tattoo. “I like it”
She wiggled, and she could feel how much he liked it. He was beginning to swell against her. “Oh really?”
“Tell me more.” He kissed a line beneath her breasts, his lips trailing beneath the heavy swell. “Keep talking. I like the way you talk about all that smart shit.”
“Tell you more about what?” She gasped as his tongue darted out to caress along her breast. “Tattoos?”
“Mm-hmmm,” he purred, his teeth grazing along the tender flesh. “Tell me more.”
She did. Between kisses and licks along the bottoms of her breasts she gasped out symbolism and criminology, but her eyes fluttered back when his mouth wrapped around her taut nipple. Her hips rolled against him instinctively. He suckled at her, one strong arm wrapping around her back as she bucked.
“Kellan.”
Her hands sank into his dark locks of hair. They were curls of obsidian against her fingers, wrapping languidly around the digits. His lips suckled until her flesh puckered with the movement. A tingle started somewhere between her breast and his lips, arching along her skin with potent pleasure. The moment the pleasure edged into too much, he released her nipple.
He went from one breast to the other, back and forth, back and forth until she was dizzy with need.
“God, Kellan.”
“What?”
“You are so damn good at this.”
“Am I?” His eyes flickered with masculine pleasure.
She tightened her fingers in his hair and he gave a hiss. It wasn’t a painful one. She tugged again and his head fell back. “You know you are.”
“You are a kinky lady.”
“You like it.”
“Let me show you how much.”
He rolled her over onto her back and pressed his shaft to her opening. He was already hard; she felt the weight of it against her thigh. She made a low sound as his mouth went to her neck. It was not a soft or gentle tasting of skin, but the dragging of teeth down tender flesh.
“Oh yes,” she whispered.
He sat up, and she watched the long line of his flat stomach as he pumped the first inch of himself into her. He circled his hips, stirring her open. His hands wrapped over the curves of her thighs, parting her legs until her knees touched the bed. She felt exposed, and open in a way that went beyond the physical.
She ran her tongue over her lips, watching him shift between her thighs, skillfully keeping that blunt tip of himself rooted inside.
“Goddamn, you are pretty,” he whispered, starring down at her. She felt an unexpected blush rise to her cheeks. He circled his hips again and it sent sparks humming through her.
“Kellan?”
“Yeah?”
“Ravage me.” She pumped her hips towards him. “Make me forget the world.”
He gave a grunt of satisfaction and shoved himself into her.
Had she been unprepared it would have hurt, but her body was so pliant for his that all she felt was the sharp edge of rough pleasure. Her hands dug into the sheets and his fingers dug into her flesh. Kellan held her completely still as he did it again. With the lights on, she could see every hypnotic play of his body as he pumped himself into her.
“Like that?”
“Oh!” she gasped. “Do it again.”
He did. She felt him drive himself against the primal part of her need. She had always thought of roughness as inelegant and unnecessary, but she had been wrong.
His eyes glittered down at her as his hips picked up speed. The wet slap of their bodies echoed off the walls. She could feel each individual finger on her legs, keeping her open. A dull ache bloomed beneath his touch. There would be bruises in the morning, but she didn’t care. She felt wild and reckless, and she wanted to be taken past the point of thought.
“More,” she gasped. “Kellan, give me more.”
He fell on top of her, releasing her legs and mating his mouth to hers. His tongue plunged between her lips even as he plunged between her thighs. Her arms wrapped around his back and she clutched at him, her nails digging into his shoulders.
A layer of sweat formed where their bodies touched. It was a tantric full body mating that made her mind spin. They slipped against one another with every raw movement. There was no practiced, careful rhythm as there had been the first time, just a desperate need to feel one another. It rode the edge of too much and yet not quite enough. Emma dug her nails in hard. He tore his mouth away from hers and let loose a wild sound that drove her crazy.
“Harder,” she demanded. “Damn you, Kellan, harder.”
He pulled out of her, and she whimpered. He grabbed one hip and rolled her to her belly, lifting her backside into the air. He slipped along her cleft, once, twice, and then he was back inside of her. Her nails dug into the sheets as his hand slid up the sweat soaked line of her back. It cupped her shoulder, holding her against the mattress.
“Yes! Just like that, Kellan, just like that.”
“So beautiful,” he groaned as he levered into her over and over again.
Her body bounced, jerked with the movement, and she loved it. She could feel him pushing, pounding into the deepest parts of her body. Her orgasm came on her without warning. There was no steady, glorious build, just a wild, desperate breaking. It was blissful, unbearable, and liberating. She didn’t care, sinking into the tempest of her ecstasy as the unchecked pulse of their lovemaking crashed around them.
When it was over she slid against the sheets. Someone had left claw marks in them. Emma was only dimly aware that it was her. When she poked at them in the pleasant lethargy of afterglow he smirked.
“I think you did the same thing to my back.”
She glanced down at him. “Did I?”
He rolled over and showed her the ragged red marks that went from his shoulders down to the middle of his back.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare.” He wrapped an arm around her middle and hauled her down to him. His lips were gentle when he pressed them to hers, but firm. “I liked it.”
She smiled, and bumped her forehead against his. “Perv.”
He shrugged and settled back against the ruin of her bed. “There are worse things I could be.”
“True enough.” She settled against him, tossing one leg over his hip. There was an ache in the movement that told her she was definitely going to be bruises.
“Your mind all settled yet?”
She thought about it for a moment, then laid a kiss on his shoulder. “Yeah, I think it is.”
“Good, because I think I’ve only got one or two left in me tonight, and if you need more than that, I might have to wave a flag.”
“Poor you.”
He kissed her again. “No, no, poor you.”
Chapter 11
Kellan’s life was marked with one mistake after another. More often than not he just rolled away from them and forgot about it. He couldn’t do that here, not with Emma. That sweet little college girl hadn’t just given him a night of passion. It had turned into a three-week marathon of naked bodies and sweating flesh.
“Will you tell me about your dad?” she asked, crawling into bed one night. She was wea
ring one of his t-shirts and nothing else. Her hair was still mussed from their most recent bed-destroying session.
He stiffened. “What?”
“I was just thinking about my dad.”
“Emma, if after all the things we just did you are thinking about your dad, I’m gonna have to say you need to see someone.”
She laughed and shoved at his naked side with a cold foot.
He winced and grabbed it, pulling it away from his skin. “Jesus! Did you soak those in ice water?”
“I’m cold.” Her voice was soft.
He sighed and pulled the blanket around her. A very bored Rocco jumped up to add his own body heat.
She reached down and petted the beast. “You’ve stolen my dog.”
“I did not.” She turned that dazzling smile on him. “He just knows good people when he sees them. And don’t think I don’t know what you are doing.”
“What am I doing?” He wrapped an arm around her. “Man, you are cold.”
“I told you.” She hunkered down next to him. She smelled like toothpaste and rain. “And you are trying to change the subject. Tell me about your dad.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because you kinda stole mine.” She didn’t sound angry when she said it. Had she been angry, he might have been able to snap back at her, or ignore the question altogether.
He tucked the blanket tighter around them both. “He was a mean damn drunk.”
“That couldn’t have been all he was.”
“Why not?”
“Because.” She shifted her body against his and snuggled into the curve of his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his naked skin. “Because my dad was a mean damn drunk, but he was also a good person. So your dad had to be more than that.”
He could have argued it, but it wouldn’t have much mattered. Mac had been mean, especially when he didn’t get his way, and he liked his liquor as much as the next man, at least until he started chemo. It wasn’t the same, but he got what she was saying.
“Yeah, all right. He came from a poor family and thought the military was the only place for him. At least that’s what he said. He also had a habit of lying about who he was and where he came from, but that’s what he said most often, so I think it’s true.”
“So he was in the military?”
“I think he was, he could shoot like he was. He liked to shoot things. One of the things he used to do was take me out hunting. He said it was important I learn how to hunt. I couldn’t tell you why, but it seemed pretty damn important to him.”
“Oh?”
He could hear the hesitation in her voice. The slow soft way she asked the question, like she didn’t really want to know the answer, but she couldn’t quite stop herself from asking it anyway.
He rolled over and offered up his shoulder. He couldn’t see it but he knew it was there, a long scar in the shape of a jagged crescent moon. He felt the muted sensation of her fingers touching old scar tissue.
“What happened?”
“I missed.”
He was going to roll back on his back but he felt her sleek body tuck in behind him. Her arm wrapped around his middle, and the pad of her thumb swept up and down on his side. The shift of her body had him rolling towards her. There was a comfort to feeling her so close, he found himself continuing to explain.
“It was a cougar. Have you ever seen one?”
“Not up close.”
“They are beautiful. Their pelt is sorta like your hair.”
“My hair?” She shifted behind him. He could only assume she was turning to look at her locks. “What about it?”
“Gold, every shade of it. She was just laying down, stretched out on this great big rock. You could tell she had eaten recently; there was a bit of blood on her mouth. It should have been creepy, but it wasn’t. Like on a person it would have been creepy, but on her it just belonged. Dad led me up there and put the gun in my hands. I didn’t expect to shoot anything that day, not really. I hadn’t been quiet enough before to sneak up on anything.”
“You? Loud?” she teased. Her lips brushed over his skin as she talked.
“Clumsy, too.” He wrapped his arm over hers. “But yeah, I hated the idea of shooting her. I mean, we weren’t going to eat her like we did the buck.”
“You can eat cougar,” she said. “It just doesn’t taste very good.”
“Have you had cougar?” he asked, tilting his head so he could see her face over his shoulder.
She was smirking at him. “No, I have not. But I can tell you that pretty much every animal can be eaten. We just don’t eat certain ones.”
“Why?” he asked, legitimately interested. “Taste?”
“Partially.” She tightened her arm around his middle, her fingers splayed over his skin. “But there is more to it than that. We eat animals that can be domesticated and fattened up, more often than not. It’s really hard to cage a cougar.”
“No shit.” He stretched his legs and rolled over unto his back. She stayed close to him, half wrapped over him. He felt the hot press of her sex against his leg. He was going to do something about it when the dog shifted his bulk between Kellan’s legs, pinning them both. “But the long and short of it is that I couldn’t shoot her. I couldn’t. I don’t know why, but it felt wrong. We were just going to kill her and hang her up and I wasn’t for it. My dad didn’t like it.”
“He cut you because you wouldn’t kill something?” She sounded shocked.
“Not exactly, he threw rocks at me. I was clumsy but quick, so only two hit. That’s the one that took me down.”
She hugged him as much as their current position would allow, and he let her. It was strange. Kellan didn’t talk about himself like this. She had a way of getting it out of him. There was something about the gentle kisses she laid on his skin, rather than the typical ‘oh, you poor thing’ some people gave.
He turned his head and she kissed him. It started off light, almost friendly, the way a girl might kiss anyone who had a bad day. Then her tongue darted between his lips. She stirred, the dog moved, and she crawled into his lap.
“All right,” she said softly, tugging the hemline of the shirt up. “How about we set aside father issues for a while?”
“Well,” he licked his lips as she exposed the naked mounds of her breasts, “if you insist.”
It was, quite possibly, the best marathon ever.
# # #
“Dude, you are crazy.” Rudy bent over the open hood of a customer’s Cadillac. His ruddy face had a smear of grease on the cheek. The shop was full of work today, and most of the guys were bouncing around between jobs.
“What are you talking about?”
“That.” Rudy motioned with the torque wrench in the general direction of the shop’s office.
Through the blinds, the two of them could see Emma and Hannah chatting and smiling at customers. She was good at the business side of things.
“What about it?”
“All right, you aren’t just crazy, you’re stupid, too.” Rudy switched out tools and continued his work.
Kellan snorted. “Man, are you going to make sense anytime soon or are you just going to keep calling me names?”
“You said when this all started that it was just to keep her safe.”
Kellan shrugged his shoulders and looked away. “Yeah, so?”
“Falling for her is a safe thing?”
“Man, I’m not falling for her. She’s just…I dunno.”
Rudy rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“You got something to say?”
Rudy stood up. “I got plenty to say. Are you going to listen?”
“Spit it out.”
“That girl has been in love with you since she was fifteen years old. I expect her to get all stupid over you. Hell, she deserves to get all stupid over you. I was hoping she’d do it when she was sixteen or seventeen so she could get you out of her system and move on with her damn life.”
Kellan watched her through the blinds. She looked good today, even standing next to someone as primped as Han. There were some chicks who took hours to make themselves look as put together as Emma looked when she threw her hair into a ponytail and wiggled into some jeans. He liked the way she wiggled.
“You angry it’s happening now?”
“Yeah, man, I am.”
There was something in his tone that had Kellan looking back at him. “Are you jealous, Rudy?”