Light the Lamp

by Catherine Gayle

  If she recognized the fact that she loved me, surely she wouldn’t leave me—even if I hadn’t sorted out how to give her what she needed. If she loved me, she would give me more time.

  But no matter what I wanted, she might not want to let me make love to her tonight. She might be too sore from last night still, or maybe she would realize what I was trying to do. But I at least wanted to hold her, watch her sleep. So I could feel her in my arms and know she was with me and safe and had a warm bed to sleep in and enough food to fill her belly.

  Only a week had gone by since she’d come into my life, but already I was noticing changes in her body. She wasn’t quite as thin, and her bones weren’t quite as close to the surface of her skin as they’d been not too long ago, but I still wanted to see her put on more weight.

  The wait for her to answer me in any way seemed endless.

  Noelle took my hand, the one that had been at her waist, urging me to my feet. She put both arms around my waist, drawing me close until we were sandwiched together and her cheek rested against my chest. I closed my eyes and held her, completely enveloped in her scent and the delicate strength she possessed. Hers wasn’t a physical strength; it was the sort that allowed her to love and care and give. I was lost in her, and I didn’t ever want to be found.

  “You can come to bed with me,” she finally said, and I released the breath I’d been holding. “You should go change, though, so you don’t leave your suit lying on the floor again. It’ll wrinkle.”

  I wasn’t worried about my suits. They could always be sent out to the cleaners and pressed and everything would be fine. If it came down to it, I could buy more. But if she wanted me to change clothes and hang up my suit, then I would do just that. At least in this, I knew how to give her what she wanted. “All right,” I said, but I didn’t let her go yet.

  After a minute, she pulled herself free and went into her bedroom, saying, “Go on, Liam. I’m tired,” and I had no choice but to go into my own room and put on something to sleep in. I hung up my suit and found a T-shirt and a pair of loose-fitting shorts. When I got to her door, I knocked.

  “Come in,” she called out.

  Noelle had already climbed into bed. The covers were down low enough that I could see the cute pajama top she had on—a purple tank with a bright-yellow smiley face with the word Happy beneath it in bold yellow lettering. It suited her in every way.

  “You make me happy,” I said and then felt like a dope. Who says things like that even if they’re the truth?

  She shook her head, one eyebrow up in question.

  “Your shirt.” I pointed at it, and then I felt even stupider than I had before.

  “Oh,” she said, looking down with a smile on her face. “Yeah. I didn’t remember what I’d put on.” She patted the spot beside her on the bed.

  That was enough of an invitation for me. I went around to the other side of the bed to get in. As soon as I sat beside her, I leaned back against the pillows propped up by the headboard, and she reclined into me, letting her head rest on my shoulder just like she always did on the couch. She felt right like that, as though she fit within my arms and there was nowhere else in this world she ought to be.

  And there wasn’t, as far as I was concerned.

  Her hand fell on my thigh beneath the covers, and that was all it took for me to harden. I groaned—I couldn’t help it—and shifted slightly away from her touch.

  “You don’t want me to touch you?” She pulled her hand away. “I’m sorry. I just—”

  “Don’t be sorry. You can always touch me.” I swallowed, trying to get myself under control. “I just don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want, Noelle.”

  “I want to touch you.”

  I wanted her to touch me more than I wanted to breathe, but I didn’t want to hurt her. “I want that, too, älskling, but I want a lot more than just a touch.”

  “So do I.” Her eyes fixed on me, firm and resolute.

  “You’re not too sore?”

  This time she blushed, which only made me want her more. Noelle was many things, I had come to learn, but shy and retiring didn’t seem to be in her repertoire. She licked her lips, drawing my eye there. “I’m sore. But I still want more. It’s a good sore.”

  “Okay. Touch me any way you want, älskling. Do you want me to touch you?”

  Her hand returned to my thigh, bolder this time, a sharp contrast to her barely whispered, “Yes.”

  I took her chin with my thumb and forefinger, tipping her face up so I could kiss her. She opened without any prompting on my part, sighing as I slid my tongue in to explore. To taste. To tease.

  Her tongue stroked mine tentatively, and she raised herself up on her knees until she was looking down on me from above. I took her face in both my hands, angling her head and holding her in place so I could take the kiss deeper. She held on, one hand on my shoulder as I ravaged her mouth.

  Soft, little mewling sounds came from her throat, similar to her tinkling laugh but huskier, deeper. Full of want. I bit her lower lip, and she gasped.

  “You drive me wild with needing you,” I said, moving to kiss and nibble and lick her neck.

  With every kiss I gave her, she hissed in a breath through her teeth. In no time, she was giggling again and squirming to get closer to me. She lifted one leg over my lap so she could straddle me and held on, planting both hands on my shoulders. Her heat came down over my painfully hard cock, taking me closer and closer to the point of a madness I didn’t want to end. She just had on panties—cute pink boy shorts with lacy edging.

  “I love your laugh,” I ground out. I did. If she was any other woman and laughing at a time like this, I might take offense. But with Noelle, I knew it was simply part of her. How could that not make me love her even more than I already did?

  She leaned further into me so that my whiskers abraded her neck. “I love your scruff. It tickles.”

  She thought it tickled? So did my chest hair. I was laughing when I slid my hands down her sides to her waist, to the bottom of her tank. I’d just started to slip my fingers beneath the hem and glide them slowly up her flesh when she beat me to the punch. She ripped off the pajama top and tossed it behind her. I couldn’t tell where it landed; I was too focused on staring at her beautiful body. She had these small, perky breasts with hard, pink nipples straining toward me.

  As soon as she got her top off, she reached for my T-shirt and started to tug it up, her fingers tangling in the hair on my chest and pulling. I had to give her credit—Noelle knew what she wanted and she wasn’t shy about trying to get it. She just went for it, no thought, no shyness, no inhibitions. All or nothing.

  I wanted to give her everything. I couldn’t fall into the same trap I had last night, though. I couldn’t put myself and my own needs first. I had to take care of her in every way, whether she thought it was necessary or not. Based on our few encounters to this point, I was about 99.999 percent positive she’d never had an orgasm. I couldn’t let that still be true by the end of the night, whether I got there myself or not, so I put my hands over hers, stopping her from removing my shirt. “Slow down, älskling. Tonight we can’t be in such a rush. Let me love you slowly.”

  “I don’t want slow,” she complained, still trying to tug her hands free so she could rip the T-shirt over my head.

  “How do you know that?” I laughed again, bringing both her hands together so I could hold them still in one of mine. “You’ve never let another man touch you. No one but me. You’ve never had slow.”

  “But I have had fast. I liked it. I want that again.” She leaned over and bit the side of my neck. It was like an electric jolt to my cock. She kissed me where her teeth had just been.

  With the pad of my thumb, I drew circles around the areola of one breast, almost but not quite touching the hard nub in the center. “Trust me, älskling. Try it my way this time.”

  She arched her back, pressing herself into my hand. I plumped her whole breast in my p
alm, and her head fell back. She didn’t think she wanted it my way, but maybe now she was learning it wouldn’t be so bad.

  I took my time exploring her breasts, eventually releasing her hands so I could use both of mine. She didn’t fight me anymore, just used them to keep herself upright or to press against mine, urging me to do more of something she liked. When I took one hardened peak into my mouth and circled my tongue around her nipple, she groaned, driving her hips down onto me so hard I could feel her wetness through my shorts and her panties. I kneaded her other breast in my hand.

  “Liam?” She was panting, breathless, perfect. One of her hands gripped me by the hair.

  “Yes, älskling?”

  “Will you…” She paused, arching her back further. Her eyes flashed, a darker blue than I’d ever seen them. “Will you rub your jaw on me?”

  I would walk through fire for her if she asked me to. In answer, I turned my head to graze her nipple with the overgrowth of whiskers lining my jaw.

  “Oh!”

  Her shout made me think it was too much. Liv had always wanted me clean-shaven. She’d been too sensitive to take the rasp of my facial hair. I tried to pull away, but Noelle held on to my head with both hands, keeping me right where she wanted me, moving me from one breast to the other. In no time, her little mewling sounds intensified to a fever pitch.

  “This is okay?” I said, my voice strangled. “I’m not hurting you?”

  Her breathing had turned short and harsh, like she was getting close to coming, and I’d barely gotten started. “It’s wonderful,” she said.

  I wanted her to climax but not too soon, so I flipped her onto her back and brought myself over her. She opened her thighs and let me settle my hips between them, and she sighed.

  “You like this?” I asked as I kissed the spot on her neck just below her earlobe.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “See? Slow and deliberate can be just as good.” Or better. I forced my attentions away from her hypersensitive areas, exploring every inch of her body. I traced the tops of her shoulders and the line of her collarbone with my fingertips. I kissed the inner bend of her elbows. I used my tongue to blaze a path down her ribs and abdomen to her belly button until she was giggling and squirming. I massaged her feet and calves, working my way up to her thighs, until no part of her body was unfamiliar. None but what her panties kept covered, at least.

  When I took the waistband between my teeth, my hands teasing her inner thighs, Noelle moaned. I tugged, gently lifting her hips. She put her feet flat against the mattress, her knees bent, and raised up to ease the way for me to remove that last barrier. When I had them down to her ankles, I tossed them aside and nudged her thighs apart. God, but she was beautiful—pink and slick and perfect, with golden curls covering her mound. And she was all mine.

  With my fingers, I explored her outer folds and tenderly touched her entrance, all the while watching her eyes. “Tell me if anything hurts,” I said. She nodded, biting down on her lip as I slid a finger inside. She was snug around me—as close-fitting as I remembered from last night—and incredibly responsive. I’d barely touched her when she bit down on her lip, tossing her head back.

  I added a second finger, moving them inside her heat and curling them upward to stroke the swollen flesh there. Her hips bucked up toward me. I lowered my head, my tongue seeking and finding the taut, little nub I knew would take her over the edge. I suckled and swirled, my fingers gliding within her liquid heat.

  She tightened around me, practically hyperventilating, and she clutched my hair with both hands. “Liam?” My name was a whispered prayer on her lips.

  I was fairly certain I knew what she wanted. After a few more flicks of my tongue on her clitoris, I lifted my head and grazed my jawline over her sensitive flesh, careful not to press too hard. My eyes fell to hers as I did it. She started out staring at me, but then her head fell against the pillows and her eyes rolled back into her head, her walls clenching my fingers.

  She came with a smile on her face. I’d never seen anything more beautiful in my life.

  I hadn’t understood what Liam was talking about when he’d insisted I needed to climax, too. Not until then. I’d thought that sex was a little painful, at least the first time, and definitely kind of messy, but overall just a nice, pleasant way to bring two people together.

  This wasn’t nice and pleasant. This was euphoric. It was like fireworks exploding under water—something that seemed completely insane and impossible but that, in the end, turned out to be the most mind-blowing reality you could ever dream up.

  I felt all ooey-gooey afterward, as if my bones had turned to mush and my brain had gone out the window. I felt sore, too, but I didn’t care about that.

  Liam moved up to lie beside me. He rested his head on the same pillow mine was on, drawing me closer to him with one arm around my waist. He kissed me long and slow and deep.

  When I felt as though my muscles were functioning properly again, I tried to pull him onto me. He still hadn’t had his climax. I could feel his erection, hot and hard, against my hip.

  He wouldn’t budge. “Not tonight, älskling.”

  Not tonight? “Why not?”

  “You’re too sore, my love. I don’t want to hurt you.” With his palm and fingertips, he caressed the side of my face. There was such gentleness, an aching sort of tenderness, in every touch he gave me.

  “It won’t hurt too much,” I said. I wanted to give him that, if nothing else. We still hadn’t found any other way I could reciprocate his kindness, and I wouldn’t be in his life much longer if we couldn’t.

  “I want tonight to be all about you, though, and I don’t want to hurt you at all. I hate that I did last night. I want to take care of you.”

  That wasn’t news. He’d already made it abundantly clear just how much he wanted to take care of me. I bit down on my tongue to keep from arguing with him because it was becoming obvious that he was no closer to letting me take care of him than he had been before. My complaints seemed to be falling on deaf ears. He claimed to love me, and I didn’t doubt that he cared for me, but he refused to see how unequal our relationship had become.

  He drew me even closer to him, nestling my head on his chest and settling my arm over his waist. Then he ran his hands along my arms and back, over and over again, until at last—despite the unease making knots in my chest as I fought with myself about leaving—I fell asleep.

  My dreams that night skirted the border of nightmares, at least for me. In them, Liam stood me on a platform and loaded my arms with gifts, but then he turned a crankshaft that raised my platform ever higher. With each turn of the crank, the space I was standing on got smaller and smaller, and he kept tossing more presents up to me until I was balancing on only my toe with more than three times my weight in boxes held aloft. I finally couldn’t stand on the platform any longer, and I fell, landing in his arms. That was how I woke, wrapped up in Liam’s arms as though he’d caught me, our legs tangled together in a mass of limbs.

  Liam was already awake, staring at me with troubled eyes. “You had a fitful sleep, älskling.” He kissed me on the forehead, one hand smoothing my hair back over my head. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  I rolled away from him and sat up, searching for my pajama top on the floor. “I’m fine,” I lied.

  “You can tell me.” He sat up and put a hand on my waist.

  I shrugged away from him, desperate at least for a moment to gather my thoughts before facing him. “There’s nothing to tell.” I grabbed the tank and pulled it over my head before standing up. My panties were near the foot of the bed on the floor. I picked them up and tugged them on before heading into the bathroom and pulling the door closed, needing a bit of separation.

  His beleaguered sigh reached my ears through the door.

  When I came back out, he’d left my room. I took a moment to rest my forehead on the cool wall, trying to compose myself. I shouldn’t go out with the girls today. Going to the spa
wouldn’t solve any of the issues between me and Liam. Besides, I didn’t have any means of paying for this stuff. It wouldn’t be right to let Liam pay for it when I fully intended to leave.

  Really, I ought to leave today. Before Rachel came to pick me up.

  Staying any longer would just mean I was taking advantage of him, and that was something I wasn’t prepared to do. Not any longer. I’d given him the week that he’d insisted upon, but I couldn’t let this go on. One thing I had never been, and was not prepared to become, was a leech. I would take enough clothes to get me by for a little while and go to the women’s shelter—and then I’d set to work finding a job and making something of myself that I could respect.

  Liam wasn’t going to like it, and I knew very well that he would probably argue with me about my decision, but it was my decision to make.

  And I’d made it.

  There wasn’t really any point in waiting around. I took the duffel bag Sara had brought that first night from the closet and started packing the clothes I’d most need while living out of a shelter. I put my purse in the bag, as well, and my public transportation pass. On the bed, I laid out an outfit to put on once I’d talked to Liam and taken a shower.

  Should I shower and dress first? He might get so upset that he would ask me to leave right away once I spelled everything out. But no, that wasn’t really like him. The longer he could keep me here, the longer he would think he had the opportunity to change my mind and convince me to stay.

  It would be better to just tell him and get that part over with. The shower could help to cleanse all the stress of it away afterward.

  I pulled on some pajama shorts in case Babs was up, steeled my spine, and took a breath. Then I picked up my bag and headed out into the living room so I could tell Liam what I’d decided. He was nowhere to be found, though. Of course he wasn’t. That would be too easy, and if I knew anything, it was that nothing about this would be easy.

  Babs was in the kitchen making coffee, his brow knit together in a frustrated line. He set the filter in the basket and started measuring out coffee grounds to fill it. “Kally went to shower. He said you’re upset. He thinks you want to leave.”