He made a movement with his head, the kind that asked if I was really going to argue semantics. I supposed I wasn’t.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ I said.
He sighed. ‘I know you are. We already talked about this. If I sound angry, I’m sorry. It’s just been a long day. And you were the last thing I expected to see. Seeing you out there, dripping all over Cece’s perfect floor in that form-fitting dress, made me realise how much I miss you.’
His body this close made me ache and clamp my teeth tight. I wanted him with the same urgency I’d always wanted him, but I refused to pull him into something. I refused to beat him up again with promises I couldn’t keep.
‘And how much my cock misses you,’ he said.
The low cadence of his admission, combined with the fact that my mind had not forgotten, at all, what his cock looked like, sent my lust another notch higher. I should not do this, I thought. I should not.
And then he kissed me, and I had no more thoughts that made any sense. Fuck, he kissed like a dream, an urgent hot dream from which there was no waking.
I pushed back, gasping like I’d been drowning, catching his gaze.
‘I can’t give you my love,’ I said.
‘I’ll take your lust right now,’ he countered, nipping at my chin, at the lobe of my ear. ‘Please let me take your lust right now.’
I dragged my hands across his flat stomach, over his hips. It was all so familiar and yet so strange. I knew where and how to touch him, but I also didn’t.
Thankfully, he was kind enough to help me.
‘Lower,’ he urged, pushing against me.
I undid his jeans and slid my fingers under the fabric. The tip of his cock was already wet, and I dipped my finger into the fluid and drew it lightly over his head until he shuddered. I wanted the length of him inside me. I wanted to feel the push of his hips as he slid into me. I wanted. I wanted. I wanted.
‘Please take this damn dress off me,’ I said. ‘It’s wet and cold.’
In a single move, he tugged the dress over my head, and then brought his heat to mine. The contact made me shiver, my teeth clanking together.
His fingers spread my legs, tugged my labia apart. I was wet already, coating his fingers when he dipped them into me. He brought his hand to his mouth, licked my juice from his fingers while I watched him.
‘Sweet,’ he said. ‘So sweet.’
‘Please, Kyle,’ I said. ‘Please, if you’re going to fuck me, please do it.’
He pushed himself against me, his cock nudging my hip, one arm wrapping around my back. He opened one of the drawers and pulled out a foil wrapper. I wanted to be the one who slipped it over his cock, who felt the pulse of his erection as he wrapped it, but he did it so quickly, I didn’t even have time to reach for him.
We fell back into the tattoo chair, me wiggling around the arm that threatened to poke me in the back. I spread my legs as best I could. He teased me with the tip of his cock until I was gasping and arching, nearly begging.
‘You’re beautiful, Jae,’ he said, looking down at me.
When he entered me, it was slow and sweet, a connection that carried our past with it. It made me want to cry and come all at the same time. Kyle’s eyes fluttered, but his gaze stayed on mine. I knew he was feeling the same thing I was. That this was goodbye.
I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t cry and focused on the feel of him against me and inside me. We moved together, slow and sweet, until we could no longer stand it. And then we fucked. Hard, fast, with an urgency that wouldn’t be curtailed or tamed.
His thrusts shoved us both half off the chair, until we were giggling and fucking, the pleasure increased by the contractions of my body from laughing. When he leaned down and kissed me, the pressure changed, the base of his cock snugging up against my clit with every thrust. I stayed still, riding the pleasure, feeling orgasm sneaking up on me.
‘Come for me, Kyle,’ I begged. ‘Please, I want to feel you.’
‘You first,’ he said. ‘You. First.’
With one hand, he snagged the hair at the very back of my neck and tugged lightly. The unexpected roughness, combined with that pitch-perfect stroke against my clit, was just enough. I came with a shuddering groan. Kyle followed a second after, giving me a second baby orgasm that felt like little tickly feet through my stomach.
Silent except for our heavy panting, we snuggled as best we could in the chair. No easy feat, but we managed. I wasn’t ready to leave him, because I knew that, when I did, it would be for the last time. We would move into that space that all ex-lovers moved into, unless one of them died early. A space of distance that was never quite closed by shared moments and memories, a space that was so very small and yet impossible to cross.
‘Kyle, what happened that night at the Cat House?’
He shrugged and shifted against me. ‘Nothing, really. Kitty and I danced on stage, and then I went off to some party. There was a lot of leather, and more than a little sex.’
‘And?’ I said.
‘And nothing. I went there, I made out with a cute woman and then I went home.’
‘What about the club?’
‘What club?’
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I know you’re not supposed to talk about the club, but it’s me.’
He opened his hands in my direction. ‘I really don’t know. It was fun, but they were all a little too out there for my taste. I like my sex pretty vanilla, I guess.’
‘I never thought we were vanilla,’ I said. But looking back, I realised that wasn’t entirely true. As fun as our sex had been, it was pretty straightforward. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but I was discovering that I wanted, maybe needed, something more.
‘It’s OK, Jae,’ he said. He said it with the kind of smile that made me wonder if he’d found someone who matched his taste exactly. I grinned back at him, feeling my heart loosen a little in its constraints. If that was true, I was glad.
‘Have you ever done a keyhole tattoo?’ I changed the subject.
He shifted away from me, pulling himself up to stand without taking his eyes off me. ‘You know I have.’
I watched Kyle watch me. I could ask him again, beg him for the tattoo that I wanted, that I needed, but I knew he would say no. He always could stand up to me, when push came to shove. It was one of the things I’d always adored about him.
But I needed this. I had a plan, and I had no other way to get it.
‘Please, Kyle,’ I said. ‘I need one.’
‘For that job?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ And for something more. But I wasn’t sure what.
‘Sorry, Jae. I’d give you the world. But I’m not tattooing you for some wild-goose chase you’re on. Especially not your first tattoo. You know me better than that.’
It was true. I did. I also knew Kyle well enough to know that once he’d said no to something that he believed in, there was little chance of changing his mind.
‘Just a little one?’ I said.
He eyed me.
I nodded. He was right, of course. Getting a tattoo was stupid. And I’d regret it as soon as it was done.
‘Have Lily draw you one,’ he said.
Which is something I should have thought of easily enough, but hadn’t. Stupid lust-addled brain.
‘Thanks, Kyle,’ I said.
‘Just be careful, Jae,’ he said.
‘Promise,’ I said.
All these promises. Not a single one of which I’d been able to keep so far.
* * *
I practically ran back to Leather Bound. If nothing else, I was getting my exercise this week.
The store was mostly dark; only the little lights at the back – what Lily called reading lights, even though they weren’t – were shining. I imagined her among the rows of books, coffee and cat by her side while she worked.
I slipped my key in the lock, still loving the ritual of it, even in the rush, and opened the door.
There were n
oises coming from my office. Not noises like ‘Hi, I’m Lily and I’m working’ noises. Noises like two people arguing, although I couldn’t make out any words. I tried to see if one sounded like Lily, but it was muffled. What were people doing in Leather Bound, much less in my office? We’d never had a break-in, but they weren’t unheard of in the area.
I looked around for some kind of weapon. Which then felt dumb. What was I going to do, take down an intruder with a bookmark? An ancient copy of Ulysses? Webster’s claws?
Don’t be a hero this time, I thought. There are no women heroines who follow a trail of noises in the darkness of a closed book store and have it end well. When you read books with those women in them, you yell at them, Janine. Just call the cops.
I slipped behind the counter, crouched down and pulled out my cell phone. I had my finger on the 9 when Webster brushed against my ankles, making me shriek. I dropped the phone and it clattered to the ground.
The voices from my office went silent.
I tried not to breathe in case they heard me. When the noises resumed, I exhaled hugely and patted around the floor, trying to find my phone in the dark.
From the enclosure of my office, I heard Lily’s laugh.
That loud, obnoxious, overly boisterous guffaw was the best possible thing I could have heard at that moment.
Lily’s voice came again, muffled with laughter, not in pain or fear. She said something that I couldn’t hear – the acoustics always did suck in here – and then laughed again. Low and breathy.
I grabbed the cracked-open office door, about to say something, when I saw Lily. Really saw her.
Bent over my desk, in a next-to-nothing black skirt. A skirt that was now even less than next to nothing because it was pushed up over her ass. She was clad in stockings of just light enough a grey that I could see her tattoos through them.
Behind her stood a woman in a three-piece suit. The woman had short black hair that tucked behind her ears and a pair of feather earrings as big as my hands. I couldn’t see her face, but she fitted into that suit like it was custom-made to swirl over her curves. Tight, but not too tight. So you could see everything and nothing at all.
Her fingers slid over Lily’s dark grey stockings with a shushing sound, toying with her. Lily moaned softly, a sound I’d never heard her make before, a quiet sound of pleasure.
As I watched, the woman pulled her hand away, cupped it, then brought it down hard on the fleshy curve of Lily’s ass. Lil’s response was quick and loud: a cry rose from her lips, a mingling of pleasure and pain that I knew all too well as of late. In a single swift move, the woman tugged Lily’s stockings down over her ass, baring the pink skin to the world. She brought the curve of her palm down again and again, hitting the line of Lily’s ass where the fabric ended, where her flesh was bare and turning a darker shade of scarlet with every spank.
I shouldn’t have stayed, shouldn’t have kept watching, but it was too hot not to look. Even without touching my clit, I could feel it blooming between my legs, practically begging for attention. I ached to finger myself, to rub myself against something hard and firm. But I stood still and held my breath, unwilling to spoil the moment by so much as moving.
The woman was saying something to her between hits, but I couldn’t make it out. As she spoke, her free hand returned to the spot between Lily’s thighs, curling her fingers in, giving her something to squirm against. Lily did so, whining low as she wiggled against the clutch of her fingers.
‘Please,’ Lily murmured.
‘Please, what?’ the woman said.
‘You know what,’ she said. ‘Please don’t make me say it. Don’t make me ask.’
‘I want to hear you,’ she said. ‘I want to hear you ask.’
‘Please fuck me,’ Lily said.
‘Spread your arms.’
Lily spread her arms across my desk, across the wide oak expanse, her breasts mashing into the wood. She looked like a beautiful bird about to take flight.
Until the woman behind her drew her hand back in a long, lazy arc and brought it down in a flash on Lily’s ass. Lily cried out, loud, every part of her that could come off the desk doing just that, taking off.
I gripped the edge of the door, arousal making my breath tight.
‘Please take me,’ Lily said.
Not missing a beat, the woman ceased the spankings, dug her hand into the back of Lily’s red hair and pulled the wrapped curls out of their updo with a single tug, so they cascaded down her back. Using Lily’s hair as leverage, she pulled her head up, forcing her to turn her neck and look over her shoulder at the woman.
I could see Lily’s face clearly now. Her red lipstick was smeared, the usual perfect black lines around her eyes smudged and streaked. And yet her eyes were dancing, alive with a smouldering desire that should have burned her.
The woman clearly caught the look too, because she leaned down and kissed her, nipping at Lily’s lips with such ferocity that I expected blood. She tangled back, their mouths meeting, so hard I thought I heard the clash of teeth. There was their captured breath between them, the woman’s low groans, and then Lily’s voice, still begging incessantly to be fucked.
I was panting hard, just watching the two of them, my own pulse creating an echoing drum in my throat. It was sexy as hell. Part of my brain was telling me to go, to give them their privacy. The other part was telling me to hike up my wool dress and stick my hand between my thighs.
As I stood there, a war of lust raging inside me, the two stood, kissing fiercely, breast to breast, their hands between each other’s thighs. Lily’s nipples peaked hard as they rubbed against the fabric of the woman’s outfit. The woman lifted Lily’s ass all the way up on my desk, forced herself between her stocking-clad thighs. With one hand, she opened Lily, stroking into her until Lily was again begging, pleading, crying out.
Unzipping her fly, the woman pulled out a beautiful latex cock, long and firm. She pumped it slowly, leisurely with her fist, the movement so tantalising my pussy began to ache with emptiness.
‘Is this what you want?’ she asked.
Lily nodded, nearly frantic, her hands reaching for the dildo, her legs opening wider as she sought to angle herself closer to the woman.
‘Greedy little slut,’ the woman said. My clit pulsed as if she’d said those very words to me.
The woman slid both hands under Lily’s ass and nearly lifted her off the desk. She settled Lily at the very head of her cock.
‘You want?’ she asked.
‘I want,’ Lily said, more growl than speech.
She entered Lily in a smooth slow stroke that made all three of us groan. I clamped a hand over my mouth, forcing myself quiet. Jesus fuck, this was so hot I felt lightheaded. I thought of my shoes, imagined their bottoms painted with stop words – stay, don’t move, stand still – so that I wouldn’t go in there and beg them to let me join in.
They moved together, thrusting hard, bodies in unison. So much so that my desk rocked beneath the movement, the short leg banging down hard on its supporting book as they fucked.
Lily’s movements became greedy, restless, shifting herself hard onto the woman’s cock and finally reaching a hand between her own legs, fingering her clit as she murmured pleasepleaseplease, nonsense syllables that got louder and louder until she came with a fast hard clench that shook her for a moment and then sent her into peals of loud laughter.
‘I love it when you come for me,’ the woman said. ‘I love the way you laugh.’
Lily laughed again
She moved her body forward, reverse thrusting with the cock inside her.
‘My turn,’ Lily said.
Lily worked to angle her movements until she got the response she wanted – a bit-lip cry from the woman.
‘That’s the spot,’ Lily said. She moved again and again, a hip-rolling stroke that brought visible shudders to her partner. ‘Touch yourself, come for me,’ she chanted.
The woman reached down with a shaky hand
and tucked it into her waistband. She gasped, and I echoed her. I knew that sensation, when you’re so wet and wanting that the faintest touch nearly sends you over the edge. She came a second later, nearly silent, her eyelids fluttering with pleasure.
‘Fuck,’ Lily breathed. ‘I adore you.’
This time the kiss between them was soft and sweet, a gentle touch of lips and then noses and then foreheads as they rested together. I could hear them breathing in unison, catching up with their bodies.
I bit my lip, my head spinning. I hadn’t come, but I ached with the need to do so.
There was something else too. I tried to tell myself it was lust, wanting, desire. But Lily’s face had been so beautiful when she’d come, and when the woman had leaned down and kissed her, there was something more there. Not just lust, but something deeper. It made my heart glad to see Lily here, clearly falling in love with someone who adored her equally. It also made me a little heartsick, after Kyle. I’d told myself that wasn’t something I wanted, and here I was, aching for it almost as much as I was aching for the sex I’d just witnessed.
Quickly and quietly, I stepped back through the stacks until my hand found the front door. I slipped outside, panting slightly. By the end, I’d been holding my breath without even realising it.
I wasn’t going to get a tattoo from Lily either, it looked like. Which pretty much left me entirely to my own devices. If I had any devices left after watching that display of lust.
CHAPTER 13
Outside the door where I’d been turned away last time, I dug a black pen out of my bag and drew the worst-ever keyhole on the palm of my hand. There was no way in hell this was going to work. But I had to try.
This time the door opened partway when I knocked. I was so taken aback that I stood there for a moment with my mouth open.
‘Yes?’ It was Smaug. Oh, dear gods. Why did this always happen to me?
He squinted at me. ‘I know you,’ he said.
I nodded. I clearly couldn’t disagree with him.
‘This isn’t a public event,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I just need to get in to find a friend. To help a friend.’
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