The Play

by Karina Halle

  I’m not sure if he means the wine or the social situations, so I don’t say anything except, “I wanted to get out of there too.”

  “Good,” he murmurs, his hand briefly sliding over my hip. I want him to slip it lower, in between my legs, and flip up the hem of my dress, but he takes my hand instead. “Come here.”

  He leads me down the long, cavernous hall, my sandals echoing as we walk. At the end, there is a large ornate mirror and a hall leading to the left and right. To the left it’s blocked by a heavy door, and to the right there is a locked, floor-to-ceiling iron gate between the room and what looks like a hall to a maintenance area. A cart full of towels sits outside an open door, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone around.

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to be in this area,” I tell him. I turn around but the look in his eyes grows molten and I immediately know what’s going on. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and a lone shiver slides down my spine.

  “I don’t think so either, love,” he says gruffly, taking a step forward until my back is pushed against the gate. “But there are no dogs here.”

  I bite my lip and wrap my hand around his neck as he presses against me, the hardness in his jeans digging into my hip. He groans quietly, lips at my neck, pushing me further into the gate. The bars hurt my back, but it’s a good kind of hurt. All the pain you get from sex is a fair trade, especially when it’s coming from Lachlan McGregor.

  He puts his hands on my thighs and slowly skims his palms up, the hem of my dress lifting with them. They leave trails of stardust and heat then pause at my hips. He lets out a heavy exhale against my neck.

  “No panties,” he murmurs. “Why do I have to leave you again?”

  I swallow, my heart pinching. There is no room for anything except sex, especially here, especially now. “Because you’re a smart man who is going back to a promising career.”

  “But how smart am I when I have to leave a woman like you behind?”

  I shut my eyes. “New rule,” I tell him, my hand slipping to his jeans and undoing his fly. “We are never to mention the fact that you are leaving. From now on.”

  He pulls back and stares at me, one hand dipping down between my legs, the other cupping my cheek. His lips are wet, parted, so entirely suckable, his eyes fraught with some wild emotion I can’t read.

  “I’m not sure I can pretend that,” he says thickly.

  “You don’t have to pretend,” I tell him, moaning softly as his fingers slide along my wetness. “We just won’t bring it up. Live in the now. Always now.” My hand finds the stiff, hot length of his cock, and I pull it out of his pants. “By the way, you don’t wear underwear either.”

  He closes his eyes and hisses softly as I wrap my fingers around him. “Just trying to keep up with you,” he says, voice rich and raspy.

  “I appreciate the effort,” I manage to say as he dips a finger inside me. My body seems to exhale from his touch, as if I need him in order to breathe. Everything aches for him, and I clench around his finger greedily, wanting more, needing more.

  But this isn’t about me. I slide my hand over his cock, dragging the silk of his precum down his rigid, heated length. I want to unravel him. I want to bring him to his knees. I want, more than anything, to undo this man and leave him the way he’s leaving me, like a string pulled and a top spinning, over and over again, waiting for the fall.

  His head goes back, mouth open. He lets out an elicit moan, the cords of his neck and the thick lines of his shoulders straining. Good god, watching him succumb to pleasure makes me happier and crazier than he would ever know.

  Naturally I want to give him more. My hand works him expertly, knowing now just where to grip, where to twist, and judging by his quick breaths, I’m sure he’s close to coming. But he finally raises his head, his eyes unfocused as they roam over my face, fighting through a haze.

  “Turn around,” he says, his voice so hoarse that it’s barely audible. “Please.”

  I do as he asks. He pushes up my dress so it’s bunched up at my waist, and I bend over, grabbing the iron bars for support. It kind of feels like I’m about to be fucked in prison, like some kind of conjugal visit, and my deepest fantasies go wild. It’s not hard to imagine when you have a troubled, tatted beast of a man about to take you from behind.

  His hands skirt my sides, over my hips, and down my thighs. I feel him crouch behind me, his fingers gripping my ass, and I try and sneak a look over my shoulder. He’s down on his knees and I can just see the top of his head beneath me.

  I’m about to ask him what he has planned, but then I feel his face sink into me from behind, his hot mouth closing over me, his bottom lip sliding up over my clit.

  Jesus. Being eaten out from behind? Yes, please.

  He groans into me and I can feel the vibrations in my bones. I swell between his lips and he sucks me in his mouth like ripened fruit. I let out a loud gasp, my hands gripping the bars for dear life. It nearly knocks me off my feet.

  “Love,” he whispers huskily, pulling back. He licks up the curve of my ass, my body exploding with a shower of sparks. “I don’t think I can ever stop tasting you.”

  My mouth opens to say something but he dives, no, submerges his face back into me and I let out a low, guttural noise, like it’s being torn from my throat. I push my hips back into his mouth, a wild, uncontrollable need burning through me.

  “Deeper,” I plead, so desperate for my release, my cheek pressing into the bars.

  His tongue snakes inside me, then a finger, then two, and I’m thrusting back into him like a fucking animal. I know I must look like one of those wild, drug-high girls you see at a fuck-fueled sex orgy, but I don’t care.

  I’m so close to coming.

  I’m at the tip, looking over the edge, ready for the freefall.

  Then he pulls back and I actually whimper in disappointment.

  “You want more?” he asks gruffly, holding onto my ass. “Tell me what you want. To come on my tongue? Or to come on my cock? Both?”

  “God, don’t make this complicated,” I whine, breathless and insatiable.

  “All of the above, then.” He spreads my legs wider, my sandals scraping along the stone floor, and pushes his face back in, his tongue, fingers, and mouth absolutely everywhere.

  I come instantly, my body a hair trigger. I’m a writhing, moaning, bucking mess of scattered nerves, my limbs dissolving like sugar. I’m barely conscious and I don’t know how I’m still upright. I feel him get up from behind me and hear the crinkle of a condom foil.

  He grips my hips as he positions himself, and with one long, slow push he eases inside me. I’m so wet and ready that he glides right in. But oh, when he pulls back out, that slow drag hitting just the right spot, somehow I’m groaning for him all over again.

  “Don’t stop,” I hiss as he plunges back inside, deeper this time, coaxing another unrestrained noise out of my throat. “Don’t you ever stop fucking me.”

  “Jesus,” he swears, gravelly and low. “I’ll bury myself in you, if you let me.” Then he moves faster, small stabs of his hips pushing deeper and deeper while his skin slaps my skin louder and louder. The smell of sex, sweat, and musk fills the room.

  I’m completely overwhelmed. It’s too perfect. It’s everything, everything. I close my eyes and imagine what we look like to someone else, the ropey muscles of his arms as he digs his fingers into my hips, the raw, uninhibited fucking in this cold, dim and empty place, the sight of his thick cock sliding into me from behind, his heavy balls swinging against my inner thighs.

  He leans forward, his fingers sliding down and finding the smooth, swollen face of my clit. He always wants me to come with him, so I know he’s about to unload at any moment. But for some reason, I hold back, as hard as I can, wanting to pay attention to the way he so beautifully lets go without losing myself at the same time.

  Drops of his sweat fall on my back. He continues pounding me, his hips changing the angle until it makes m
e gasp for air, my back arching. His breathing is shaky and his muscles are trembling from the strain, but he keeps going and going, whimpering now, clawing me in desperation.

  There’s a moment, a pause, a sharp intake of air, then the room fills with the sounds of his harsh, sharp grunts, the sound of him coming, a sound I love so much that it pushes me over the edge. It’s the signal of his undoing, and his fingers press so hard into my skin that I’m afraid I might break in two. I am breaking in two. I am stretched thin, a plate of fragile glass, and I am breaking and breaking and breaking as he pounds me from behind.

  I can barely hang onto the bars. I can barely hang onto myself. Wave after wave of emotion slams through me, filling the blank spaces, the cracks, the parts of me that have shattered off into space. I can barely breathe, and the ache, the fucking ache, is no longer between my legs but throughout my entire body.

  “Kayla,” Lachlan whispers hoarsely, leaning forward against my sweaty back. “Oh, love.” He rests his cheek on my shoulder blades and his ragged breaths rise and fall against me.

  I close my eyes and will myself not to cry. It’s silly. Stupid. It’s just sex. It’s just fucking sex. But the emotion doesn’t go away. It sits on my heart, and I can’t tell what it wants from me. Are these happy tears? Sad tears? Why do I have to feel anything at all but release?

  My fingers on the bars are beginning to slip, so I readjust my grip, and somehow that breaks the spell. Lachlan lifts himself off of me, and with a hand on my hip, pulls himself out. I take a moment to run my fingers under my eyes before turning around to face him.

  He stands there, pants at his ankles, shirt bunched up, showing off his ink and glorious six-pack. He’s pulling off the condom and tying it at the end but I’m barely paying attention. It’s the look in his eyes that gets me, steals my breath. They don’t have the peace, the softness that he usually gets after sex. He looks haunted instead, like I’m a ghost before him.

  I swallow, my mouth parched, and try to think of something to say, but words escape me. I stare at him and he stares at me, electricity built of unsaid words and unknown feelings thrumming between us. There’s nothing awkward or uncomfortable about it. It’s just us, doing what we do, trying to glean something from each other that we don’t know ourselves, forever locked in each other’s eyes.

  Finally he pulls up his pants, comes over to me, and pulls me into a wet, passionate kiss, his lips pressing hard against mine, his tongue tasting like me, like salt, like sweat.

  He holds my face with one hand, running his thumb over my lips, gazing at me deeply. “I’m sorry if that was a bit savage.”

  I smirk. “The more savage the better.” And it’s true, because anything that could border on the sweet and sensitive, the emotionally-laden sex that is so often called “making love,” well, I don’t think I could maneuver that very well. After all, as savage as that fuck was, it still unleashed a torrent of emotions that I’m not equipped to handle. I’ve had a black heart my whole life, and it doesn’t know what to do with anything that could turn it whole and pink.

  Noises come suddenly from behind the room’s locked door, and we quickly exchange a sheepish glance before we hightail it down the corridor, Lachlan flicking the condom in the trash can as we leave.

  Once in the foyer, we pause, spotting the group still in the wine bar, laughing about something.

  I look up at Lachlan. “We don’t have to join them.”

  “Aye,” he says with a nod. “But we should. Come on.”

  “Do I look like I just got thoroughly fucked?” I whisper to him.

  He glances down at me and there’s a flash of a wicked smile. “Oh yes.”

  “There you guys are,” Steph says as we approach the table, and it’s too late to even smooth down my hair. I know that my face and chest must be flushed. “I’d ask where you’ve been, but I don’t want to know.”

  I give her a haughty smile and take my seat like a prim and proper lady. “Just getting some fresh air.”

  Nicola snorts from beside me. “I think I might need to know where you’re getting your air.”

  “Sweetheart, your air is just fine,” Bram says to her from across the table.

  With the wine tasting over now, everyone is just splitting a couple of bottles. I hesitate to have a glass, already feeling quite woozy from earlier, but Lachlan surprisingly has one so I join him.

  Eventually our stomachs start grumbling and we all head to dinner in one of the restaurants. Lachlan quickly stops by the room to get Emily since we learned you can have pets out on the patio, and we spend a few hours drinking more wine and eating as the sun goes down in the distance, casting a glow over the vineyards.

  I breathe in deeply, enjoying the heat of the night air and the crickets that fill the silence. Bram and Nicola excuse themselves, Nicola saying she needs to call her mother and speak to Ava before it gets too late. Then eventually Steph and Linden leave too, hanging onto each other like two drunken fools.

  “Alone at last,” I say to Lachlan who is sitting splay-legged beside me and puffing on a cigar that the waiter hasn’t said anything about. In fact, I think they purposely forgot we were all out here.

  Lachlan lets out a small grunt, brow creased and deep in thought. I think he’s drunk, but it’s hard to tell. If anything, he’s gotten quieter as the night goes on.

  “Are you all right?” I ask.

  His eyes flit to mine. His stare is hard, flinty. “I’m just fine,” he says giving me a tight smile.

  I swallow. “That’s such a girl answer.”

  He blinks, intensity brewing like a thunderstorm. “Excuse me?”

  Even Emily raises her head.

  I lean back slightly, appraising him. Even though I was kind of provoking him just now, his mood switch is surprising.

  Still, I refuse to be intimidated. We’ve passed too many bodily fluids between each other for that. “I said that’s a girl answer. You said fine, like everything isn’t fine, and if that’s the case, I just want to know what’s up.”

  His dark brows lower, and it’s almost like he’s glowering at me. Still, he doesn’t say anything. He sticks his cigar in his mouth and looks away.

  I sigh and put my hand on his shoulder. “Hey. You can tell me.”

  He closes his eyes, his head leaning back for a moment. “Love,” he says, an edge to his voice. “I’m fine. I’m just…processing what’s going on.”

  “And what’s going on?”

  He shakes his head and leans over the table, pouring himself another glass of wine. I watch as he downs it. When he’s done, he wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “What isn’t going on?” he says. But there’s so much despair and bitterness in his voice that I feel like I’ve been backhanded.

  I get out of my seat and grab his hand, tugging him to me. “Okay, the wine is gone. It’s time to go.”

  He shrugs out of my grasp. “Go back alone then. I’m still smoking my cigar.”

  He’s slurring a bit, so he’s obviously a bit drunk. He’s turning a bit Mr. Hyde on me.

  I cross my arms. “No. I’m not going back without you.”

  “Your loss,” he says, then laughs to himself as if he’s said something hilarious.

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “It isn’t my loss.” I sit back down and stare at him imploringly. Ages pass. Finally, he puts out his cigar.

  “Fine,” he says, none too happy about it. “We can go now.”

  He gets up, a bit unsteady on his feet, and reaches down for Emily, but the dog is perceptive and growls at him, shying away.

  He stares at her for a moment, frowning, like he can’t believe it. Then he rubs his lips together, his eyes beady and hard, and nods his head to some imaginary question.

  “All right,” he says quietly. “All right.” He looks to me and seems to understand. “Do you want to take her? I don’t think I should.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say quickly, and grab Emily’s leash. She’s still staring up at Lachlan in co
nfusion and he’s matching her stare. She knows that something has changed in him, and now he knows it, too.

  Dogs with behavioral problems shouldn’t learn from people with behavioral problems. Now I understand it. Another piece of the puzzle that is Lachlan, carefully fitting into place. Funny enough that it has to be a dog to knock some damn sense into him and not me.

  I grab hold of Lachlan’s arm but he doesn’t pull away. His gait is a bit awkward, but I manage to lead him around the hotel and all the way back to our room.

  He goes straight for the bed, flopping over facedown.

  I lock the door, turn on the lights, and let Emily off the leash before I go over to him and tap him on the shoulder.

  “You can’t sleep with your clothes on,” I tell him.

  He grunts. “Undress me then.”

  “You weigh a literal ton,” I tell him, trying to reach underneath him to pull off his shirt.

  “Hyperbole,” he mutters.

  I smack him on the ass. “Just sit up, please.”

  With a heavy sigh he somehow rights himself. I quickly manage to pull off his shirt, his chin dipped against his chest, before he falls back to the bed, creating a minor earthquake on the mattress. I roll him on his side and take off his pants, for once something entirely unsexy.

  “How did you even manage to get this drunk?” I ask, even though I’m not sure he’s listening.

  He swallows a few times, eyes still closed, and says, “I don’t drink much.”

  “Right. The rugby,” I say.

  “No,” he says with a slight shake of his head. “I just shouldn’t. I like it too much. I need it too much. Like I need a lot of things. Bad things. And then I’m useless. It’s ruined me before, you know.”

  I pause at this information so casually coming out of his mouth, then I pull his pant legs off before untying his boots. “I see,” I eventually say.

  “You want the truth, that’s the truth. I have many truths. That is one of them.”

  I toss his boots to the ground and place my hand on his shoulder. “Well, thank you for telling me your truth,” I say earnestly.