“Purple?” He grimaced, even as he slipped the mask on.
“Lavender, to be exact. It was either that or a Disney princess theme, so if you don’t want me making any Sleeping Beauty jokes, you’ll roll with it.”
“This is really… um… dark.” He adjusted the mask and then turned his head from side to side, testing his ability to see.
“Sort of the whole point, don’t you think?” I pushed him back into the mass of pillows.
I couldn’t wait any longer. The feel of his golden skin beneath my fingers and the corded strength in his arms as I positioned him, triggered that earlier hunger we experienced in the parking lot. I climbed on top of him, straddled his thighs, and kissed that full mouth, chasing after his elusive, delectable tongue. He met me halfway, straining up blindly to lock lips with me, and the warm slide of his tongue on mine felt like coming home. I leaned forward and pressed him into the pillows, feeling the curve of his smile beneath my lips and the push of his cock against my belly. I knew the moment the smile disappeared. It was when I looped the necktie around his wrist and felt for the brass railing to bind his wrist to the headboard. It was a little awkward with one arm in a cast, but fortunately my fingers had some mobility.
He broke off the kiss, placed his tongue firmly in his cheek for a moment, and said, “So, you’ve got one wrist tied. Now what?”
I pulled the belt off my bathrobe and tied the other wrist down. The fabric of the robe billowed over us like a blanket. I could have stayed like that for hours, mapping every inch of his skin. I marked the location of every little scar, the fine lines around the corners of his mouth, the stubble on his chin, and the one or two silver threads that wove their way into his sideburns. I memorized his scent, both familiar and alien to me at the same time, a heady mix of a long-familiar deodorant soap and his own musk—elusive and mocking to my memory, yet deeply arousing. I knew him. Knew his body, knew his smell. I just couldn’t remember it. I vowed never to forget it again. We lay like that a long time, with me kissing and nipping at his skin, until he writhed beneath me and ground his hips and his dick against me.
“None of that,” I said, rolling off him. I headed for the ice bucket to take a big gulp of champagne.
He lifted his head and turned it to one side, as if to track my movement through sound. “Hey,” he whined. “Where’d you go?”
Precariously balancing the ice bucket on the corner of the nightstand, where it barely fit, I draped the towel over it, so I could grab it later. I came back to bed with an ice cube in one hand.
He pulled one leg up across his body protectively. “Oh man, not the ice thing.”
Goddammit, how did he know? “What makes you think I’ve got ice?”
“I heard you get it out of the bucket.”
I said nothing but placed the cube in my mouth. Holding out my hand, I allowed the melted water to drip off it onto his skin. He flinched with each droplet, cursing soundly, and curling up to avoid it. He seemed to know where each one was going to fall too. I guess he could sense the heat of my hand hovering over him.
Trying to surprise him, I pressed down on his good shoulder with an icy hand. He hissed and laughed at the cold touch. Spitting the partially melted cube into my hand, I then licked along his collarbone. Enjoying the buck against my chilly tongue, I latched onto a nipple with nearly numb lips.
“Holy mother of God,” he yelped.
“Too much?” I asked, letting the smug ooze into my voice. “We can stop any time, you know. You just have to say the word.”
He arched into me in a way that made me nearly insane with the need to touch him. I wanted to wallow on him, to rut up against him with my entire body. It was taking all my self-control to make it about him first, to bring him to the headspace where he needed to be. “N-no,” he stuttered. “We’re good.”
Taking him at his word, I popped the remnants of the ice cube back into my mouth and closed my lips over his cockhead.
“Jesus, fuck,” he cried out and came up off the bed as far as his tied hands would allow. Then he flopped into the pillows once more.
I smiled around his dick and bobbed my head up and down over the end, taking in a bit more each time. I had to remind myself not to get too carried away. I wasn’t ready for it to be over so soon—not by a long shot. As the last little slip of ice dissolved, I pulled my mouth off his cock to rub my cold lips over the head. “I’m thinking you need this,” I said. “You need someone else to be in control for a change.”
His thighs trembled beneath me.
“Yeah,” I continued, “someone to tell you what to do. No thinking on your part. Your only job is to feel.”
He pushed back into the pillows, the tendons of his neck taut and his mouth falling slack. I regretted not being able to see his eyes, but only a little. I’d never seen him like that before. So… abandoned. I wanted to take him further, to reduce him to nothing but mere sensation. But that would mean keeping him guessing what was next, and that was proving more difficult than I anticipated. I leaned across him and untied his hands one at a time.
“Turn over,” I ordered. He did so without question, but slowly, like a horse that had been run hard and was trembling with the exertion. When he was on his hands and knees, I retied his wrists to the headboard, pressing up against him as I did so and dragging my body across his. I needed to feel him with every available inch of skin. Bracing himself with his hands on the headboard, he ground against me, begging for me to fuck him, but not yet. I wasn’t ready yet.
“You good?” I smoothed my cold fingers over his sides.
“I’m not made of glass, Parker,” he growled, even as his skin twitched at the contact.
I folded myself over his back, my dick nudging his crack as I grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled his head up. I whispered in his ear. “Oh, I think you are. I think you’re made of glass, and I’m about to shatter you into a million pieces. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put you back together again. But I will.”
He quivered ever so slightly, but at my words or my actions, I couldn’t tell. I levered myself off him and sat back on my heels. That beautiful ass was right there in front of me, so I smacked it. Hard.
He jerked under my hand, even though I could sense he was braced for something like that. I had to get him to stop bracing, to stop anticipating, to simply experience the moment. My hand connected with his ass cheek again, and the combination of strikes raised a red mark on his untanned skin.
“Thought you could handle all this on your own, did you?” I let another blow fall, and another, keeping my voice cool and detached. “The discovery of your sister’s killer. Shooting an old classmate.” I smacked him again, feeling the sting in my palm and knowing his ass had to be burning. When he flinched, it wasn’t just because of the physical blows. My words were getting through to him. “But then, that’s just you, isn’t it? Always the martyr. Too proud to ask for help.”
His body was beginning to accept the strikes, to relax and give into the shock of contact. He went down on his elbows to support his weight. The imprint of my hand radiated heat off his ass. “It isn’t like that,” he gasped into the pillows.
“Oh, but it is,” I said. I grabbed another ice cube and held it tightly. It melted between my fingers and I flung it aside to place my hand on his burning cheek.
“Aw, fuck,” he cried out when my cold fingers touched his flaming skin. He bunched his fists and jerked against the restraints when he couldn’t move away.
I spread his cheeks and dove in, licking and thrusting with my tongue up his ass, the way I’d kissed him just minutes before. He arched up with an inarticulate cry and dropped his head to let it hang between his shoulders. He panted as I licked and teased his hole, twisting beneath my touch.
I nipped his other cheek in passing as I came up from the rimming. There was a moment of fumbling as I tried to open the lube with partially numb digits, but I managed to squeeze some into my hand. Thank God
I’m right-handed, because I wouldn’t have been able to do what I wanted to next wearing a cast. To say John jumped when I touched him in his most private of places with those still-chilly fingers is an understatement. To say he cursed was putting it mildly. I just laughed and continued fingering him, feeling his tightness at the unwarranted intrusion relax as my fingers warmed and his body demanded more.
He rocked on his hands and knees, moaning with every push of my fingers. After wiping them on the towel, I rolled on the condom and some more slick. Then I lined up behind him and slowly pushed in. We groaned together as I pushed past the outer ring of muscle, and then I was balls deep in his ass. The heat there felt like a hot coal beneath my skin. I wrapped my arms around him, and the robe enveloped us in soft warmth once more. When I took his cock with my slick hand, he gasped and then laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. Just glad you’re right-handed, that’s all.”
“Great minds think alike.”
He snorted and then hissed when I left off jacking him to twist a nipple, just for distracting me. Before he could even growl at me, I began to move, slowly rolling my hips and jacking him to the same rhythm. I kissed the damp skin of his back. I kissed everything within reach.
He made almost no sound at first—scarcely more than a release of breath—but I could feel every muscle in his body tightening beneath me as the tension ratcheted up. Small, wordless sounds were wrung out of him with my every thrust, and I picked up the pace, needing to hear him cry out. My hand moved furiously up and down his cock, and I nearly sobbed with relief when he shuddered and I felt the warmth of come spilling over my hand. I worked my hand over his dick, pulling every last stripe of sensation from him, until he shifted and involuntarily tightened the restraints. Too much. No more. I got the message.
I pushed back up on my knees, took a good hold of his right hip, just resting the fingers of my left hand on his side so I could pound him in earnest. It was like climbing toward a goal, every muscle straining with the effort, knowing I was almost there.
I cried out as I came, and I pulsed a long time as I felt John clench and relax his ass around me. He slowly went down on his belly and then turned his face to one side as he collapsed onto the bed, with me pressing on top of him. I hated to leave his body, to break the connection between us, but I was half-afraid I might suffocate him in the depths of the Alexander pillow collection. I pulled out and tossed the condom on the floor. Then I lay beside him, facing the ceiling as the blood thundering in my veins gradually slowed and evened out. Before I could accidentally fall asleep, I heaved myself up, untied him, and rolled him onto his back.
Though his eyes were covered by the mask, I could see he wore what I strongly suspected was Smile Number One. The smile he only showed when he’d just had the best sex of his life.
Which made it all the more painful that I still couldn’t remember having been with him before.
Chapter Seven
ONE OF the marvelous things about staying in an upscale hotel is how dark you can make the room. Only one of the many amenities, mind you, another being the enormous Jacuzzi in the bathroom, which did see some action the night before. There’s the beauty too, of having staff bring a perfectly cooked steak to your room when you’d rather not get dressed and go out. But the cave-like darkness that can be achieved with the expensive blinds that only a good hotel can provide? Heaven. Sheer heaven. One of the few perks of staying in Jean’s basement was the lack of windows made it easier to sleep in. Our hotel room could almost match that tomb-like blackness.
Nice hotels rarely have people tromping up and down in the corridor, dragging overly tired kids behind them, who wail incoherently for something they can’t have. And for once the cats weren’t stomping all over my chest, patting me on the face, and lifting my eyelids with a paw to see if I was awake yet. Forgive me if I’d been looking forward to a bit of a snooze and a cuddle with my boyfriend.
Oh. Right. What was I thinking?
My boyfriend was already up and out of bed. Morning light in my face was my first clue.
When I opened my eyes and squinted into the sun, he adjusted the blinds slightly, so the eye-tearing glare didn’t hit me square in the face.
He presented a very nice image, silhouetted against the glass. Barefoot, wearing nothing but his jeans, he glanced over his shoulder from where he was leaning against the window frame. His hair was appropriately bedhead messy for once, and he looked more relaxed than I’d seen him in a while.
As though my thought permeated the air, he let go of the blind and turned to face me.
“We need to talk.” He folded his arms across his chest.
So much for relaxation.
I pulled one of the many pillows closer to me, stuffed it under my cheek, and closed my eyes. “Can it wait until after breakfast? I burned up a fair amount of calories last night.”
I heard his soft snort. “You and me both. Dinner seems like it was a long time ago.”
I lifted one eyelid. His half smile was already fading. With a groan, I rolled onto my back and punched up the pillows behind me. “Fine,” I said. “We’ll talk.”
“Are you sure?” His voice was teasing, but he didn’t move from the window.
“Well, I do need to alert the media that John Flynn wants to have a serious discussion. That might take a little time. No one will believe me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I thought you had amnesia. That you didn’t remember anything about us. So how is it you know I’m not big on sharing?”
“Trained investigator.” I echoed his comment from the bar the night before. “Besides, you just confirmed my hypothesis.” I was smug. Very smug.
I was forced to eat my words (or at least a pillow) as John sprang onto the bed and wrestled me into taking them back. It was a relief to be manhandled by him, to be honest. I’d harbored a faint worry that our relationship might have changed for the worse by me coming on too strong the night before. The last thing I wanted was John Flynn fawning over my boots, licking my feet like a whipped puppy. Okay, maybe the foot-licking part wouldn’t be so bad.
“Funny man,” he said, pinning me down with my right wrist over my head. We both tacitly ignored the fact I could have clobbered him with my cast if I really wanted him off me—which I didn’t. He straddled my body, and my cock developed some interesting ideas that suggested breakfast could wait. “Don’t quit your day job.”
“I have no intention of quitting.” Whether I’d get cleared to go back to work was a nagging doubt I chose to ignore. “You couldn’t get by without me.”
That brought a genuine smile to his face—Smile Number Five—the one that made him look like a complete dork. His eyes narrowed briefly, and he bent down to brush my lips with a kiss. “You’re right about that much, at least,” he murmured.
His gentleness was unexpected. Perhaps we needed a repeat performance of the night before. Every night, in fact. He rested on top of me, staring down into my eyes for a long moment. Then he heaved a sigh and rolled to one side. I propped myself up on one elbow and watched him push a hand through his hair.
“What?” I frowned. He looked serious.
“This. Us. We need to have a serious talk here.” The echo of my thoughts was downright creepy.
“That.” He pointed at me as though I’d said something, his eyebrows disappearing under the heavy fringe of his hair. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
“Though you are largely using words of one syllable, you’re making no sense, whatsoever. Hold that thought, though. I have to pee.” I pushed him farther aside so I could toss back the covers and ooze out of bed, rotating my injured shoulder as I did. I wasn’t in as rough shape as I thought I’d be, given the athletic nature of our evening activities. There was something to be said for the healing properties of cock after all.
John sat back on his heels on the mattress and tilted his head alertly to one side.
“What?” I asked again.
He got to his feet, snatched his shirt off the nearby chair, and slid it on. “Someone’s coming.”
“Jeez, you must have the ears of a cat.” I couldn’t hear anyone in the corridor. “Besides, even if someone was coming down the hallway, there’s nothing to say that they’re coming to see—”
There was a knock at the door. “Agent Flynn?” A woman’s voice queried from just outside the room. “Special Agents Drover and Harris here. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Just a minute.” John raised his voice to be heard through the door while motioning me to go into the bathroom. I got out of bed to grab my robe, but had no intention of hiding in a reversal of the roles of the night before. He came around the end of the bed to shove me in that direction, but I resisted. He might be wiry, but I outweighed him. I wasn’t going anywhere.
I kept my voice down as I hissed at him. “Agents tracking us down on a Saturday morning? Is there something you’re not telling me?” Technically, John wasn’t working any cases, and even if this was about the case he’d handled the day before, there was this handy little device known as a cell phone. People had been using them for years.
“This is as much a surprise to me as it is you.” John tried to forcibly herd me into hiding.
“Spoken like someone making an effort not to tell an outright lie,” I growled, shoving him off me. He looked startled—which pleased me. I was tired of feeling like he knew everything I was about to say before I said it. “Are you ashamed of us?”
“No.” The corners of his mouth pulled down. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “No. Don’t be an idiot. I don’t want to talk to them in the room. I’m going to tell them you’re in the shower and that we’ll meet them downstairs. Besides, I thought you had to pee.”
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