by Anne Calhoun
He really had gorgeous eyes, the striations and variation in color ranging from dark brown at the edges to a fawn color near the center. His eyelashes were thick, short, almost spiky straight, and very dense along both lids. The creases at the outer edge were easier to see up close, a dense web of lines that came from squinting into the sun. His blade shades had left a distinct tan line along his temple and across the bridge of his nose.
Her heart rate shifted as she drew, blood heating her face, then fading as the connection between them tightened like a knot in silk. She startled when his watch beeped again, and quickly set her pencil down. The finished product reminded her of a tangle of thread found in her grandmother’s embroidery basket.
“Don’t often do this with people looking at my face,” he said, and stepped into his shorts.
She chuckled. Naked tattooed man with the sculpted body of an athlete, and she drew his face. “Your face is very interesting. Lots of contours.”
She felt better, though, her muscles loosened, her mind ever so slightly calmer, less like a hamster on crack and more aware of little details around her. The rough brick of the fireplace, the pale yellow paint on the walls. Seth’s body, and the promise it held.
No. The last thing she needed was a man.
Her purse lay on her bed, through the landing and bathroom in the master suite. Arden brought it back into the living room and opened it, and riffled through her cash. Her hands engaged, her mind sent up another memory from a long-ago art class, the instructor giving them all lemons to handle, explaining the connection between touching an object and drawing it. They were, he said, to draw like they were touching what they saw. It all sounded vaguely ridiculous to Arden then.
Right now it made all kinds of sense.
Seth thrust his arms into the sleeves of his T-shirt, the fabric stretching over his elbows and partially obscuring his tattoos. “Wait,” she said.
He paused, looking at her expectantly.
“May I touch you?” she asked, peering at him.
– FOUR –
Her hair slid free from behind her ear and slid to her cheekbone, obstructing her view but not enough to miss the fact that he stopped breathing. She hastened to add, “I remembered something from the contour drawing lesson. Supposedly there’s a connection between touch and drawing.”
It sounded really awkward when she explained the request. He hesitated, probably searching for a polite way to tell her no, that she remembered wrong. “Sure.”
She walked back to stand in front of him. For the first time she felt the difference in their heights in a way that made her heart skip and her stomach flutter. He stood right in front of her, backlit by the soft light from the floor lamps. His head was bent, looking down at her, his soft exhales warming the hair at her temple, an intimate touch she registered deep in her belly. He didn’t discard his shirt, but left it where it was, his arms thrust into the sleeves to the elbow, the fabric drawn taut, like a shield.
She secured her hair behind her ear and hesitated for a moment then reached out tentatively to place the tips of her first two fingers on the sword’s hilt. Despite nearly two hours of constant exposure, his skin was warm to the touch. He’d resumed breathing shallowly, but once again stopped entirely when her skin made contact with his. She glanced up, and saw that his eyes were closed, his lips parted ever so slightly. His shoulders were rigid, steeled against an assault, she realized.
“Are you sure this is all right?”
“It’s fine.” Brusque, but deeper. Resonant with something she didn’t quite recognize.
Permission given not once, but twice, she continued her exploration, following the line of the sword to the dense muscle of his shoulder, then back again to his collarbone, startlingly vulnerable under his skin. The bare patch under the hilt drew her eye, incongruous next to the sword and the elaborate dragon that coiled over his right shoulder, ready to launch itself from his skin. He was literally skin and bone and muscle, his abdominals visible in a way she knew came not just from being physically fit but carrying no body fat. She wanted to follow the sword blade down his side to his hip, where his cargo shorts rested, but that felt too much like an invitation.
“May I see your back?” she asked softly.
He turned, allowing her to explore the sword, a different set of runes running down the blade that disappeared into his waistband. Touching him did help, she realized. She had a better sense of the density of his body, the thinness of the skin over muscle that was, even at rest, a threat and a promise all rolled into one. Heat seemed to pulse from his body through her fingertips and into her veins, where each feed of her heart carried it to the edges of her skin. Her lips. Her nipples. Her sex.
“Thank you,” she said, and heard something else entirely in her voice.
He turned again, full circle, and faced her. He made no move to pull the T-shirt over his head, but rather, looked at her with an expression that was part challenge, part invitation. “Get what you needed?” he asked, low and steady.
“No,” she said.
She wondered if she should say something else, something more flirtatious like I didn’t get what I needed or I could use a little more of you. But she wasn’t wired that way, and not even the total collapse of her family’s business and reputation could change that. So she left it at no, hooked her fingers in the hem of his T-shirt, snagged between his elbows, and went on tiptoe to kiss him. His mouth was firm, soft, and resilient under hers, and the heat of his mouth, the promise of his tongue sent sensation flickering along her nerves. The rough scratch of a couple days of stubble around his mouth sent another wave of input surging into her nerve endings.
He let his hands drop a little, giving some slack to the fabric. Arden pulled it free from his hands and wrists and dropped it on the floor beside her. Then she curled her fingers in the waistband of his tough cargo pants, and pulled him to her. This time there was nothing tentative about the kiss, just pure need driving her to tilt her head and slide her mouth across his. He took advantage of her open lips and touched his tongue to hers. Then exactly what she’d been hoping and praying for the past horrible days happened. Desire flooded her brain, and she stopped thinking, worrying, processing, and shut down, simply recording sensation, movement.
Her body took over, but with none of the breathless terror that came with a panic attack. Instead her dominant rational mind disappeared, leaving her a purely physical creature. Her finger tightened around his waistband, and his abdomen jumped, flexing against the backs of her fingers. One of his hands slid through her hair to cup the back of her head; the other flattened at the base of her spine, sealing them together from thighs to chests. The kiss deepened, his tongue dancing against hers, then withdrawing.
“Oh,” she said indistinctly, and took advantage, sliding her tongue into his mouth to glide along the edges of his teeth, then touch, tip to tip, then retreat ever so slightly.
He groaned, and his grip tightened as the sound rumbled from his throat into her mouth. She stroked at his throat, intrigued by the noises he made, wondering whether the texture was as rough as the sound. They would shape the way she drew him, she thought. The heel of her palm rested against silky skin, while the tips of her fingers rasped against bristly stubble under his jaw.
A second groan worked its way up from his chest, rough and desperate under her hand. He tugged his hand free from her hair, taking a few strands with him. The pain, stinging sweet, made her shift her pelvis against his. Now she could feel his erection against her belly, then brushing the fingers gripping his waistband as he shifted in response, freeing the thick shaft to strain upward. The soft tip left a smear of fluid on her knuckles.
She was distracted from her focus on his cock when he grasped the hand at his throat and dragged it across his jaw to nip at the tips of her fingers, then suck them into his mouth. The combination of heat and slick pressure was so viscerally shocking she gasped at the intimacy, but before she could pull them away, he bit down with
just enough strength to hold her fingertips while he licked them. Still holding her wrist, he released her fingers, then, without breaking eye contact, drew her hand down his chest to his nipple.
She circled the hard nub, watched it stiffen under her fingertips as the cool air washed over the moisture. His cock pulsed against her hand. It was the most honest chain reaction she’d ever experienced. She bent her head and licked his other nipple while pinching the first between her thumb and forefinger, and caught the groan with her mouth.
“Bed,” he muttered indistinctly.
“This way,” she whispered, tugging him through the bathroom to her bedroom. Once inside the door she set to work at his button fly, ripping it open and shoving his boxers and pants to the floor with hurried moves, then dropped to her knees, desperate to taste and touch at the same time.
“Whoa, whoa, slow down, oh, fuck,” he said, the word drawing out on a sound as thick and salty as the fluid on her tongue. But this would do, stroking the ridged muscles in his abdomen with her fingertips while licking the tip of his cock, then taking him deep until her lips met her fingers, wrapped around the base of his shaft.
Yes. It was taste, and the smell of soap and sweat nestled in the crease of his thigh, and the hair on his leg rough under her palm, punctuated by the raised, smooth shrapnel scars. She smoothed her hand back up his thigh until she could brush his balls with her thumb as she slowly took him in, drowning in wave after wave of sensation, the sound of his rough breathing in her ears. She risked a glance up at him. His head lolled on his neck, and his hand hovered near her head, fingers flexing, as if he wanted to grip her head but was holding back.
No holding back. She patted blindly at the air until her hand made contact with his, then drew it down to rest on her hair. His eyes snapped open, peering directly into hers, part rough need, part question. In response she let her lashes drift closed, pulled off so the tip of his cock rested on her tongue, then closed her lips around it and sank down again, saliva slicking her way.
“Oh, fuck, that’s good,” he said, and slid his fingers into her hair.
More sensation upon more, well past enough and into whiteout overload. His hand tightened in her hair; his hips, quivering with the effort to stay still and not fuck her mouth, gave up the battle. She left her circling fingers snug against her lips and let him thrust through her grip, into her mouth. A fresh burst of semen flared on her tongue, and she stopped.
This time his groan held a pissed-off edge. Although she hadn’t known when she started, that’s what she wanted. That was exactly what she wanted, oh, yes, please. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, then scrambled backward, off her knees and up over the foot of her bed. Once in the middle, she yanked her top over her head, wriggled out of her bra, and went to work on the zipper of her jeans.
“What the everloving fuck?”
She looked up. He stood at the foot of her bed, gloriously naked, hands on his hips, brows lowered, sweat gleaming on his chest and shoulders, his cock bobbing with his pulse, red and slick with her saliva. Her scars were clearly on display on her left shoulder and knee, some thin, fine white lines, others thick and heavy from becoming keloid scars. His gaze flicked from them to her face.
“Fuck me like that,” she said, and shimmied her jeans down her hips. The denim was halfway down her thighs when she remembered protection, and rolled onto her stomach to scrabble in her nightstand. She wouldn’t need lubricant. Her sex felt full and heavy, the slickness apparent as she moved.
From this awkward angle, the drawer stuck, so she yanked it open. It dropped to the floor with a clatter, spilling a box of tissues, lotion, two alarm clocks, a timer, and thank you God, condoms on the floor. Still wearing her jeans at half-mast but beyond caring what she looked like, she snagged a strip of condoms and tore one off.
“Like this?” he asked, deceptively calm.
“Yes,” she demanded.
“You got it,” he said, and dropped on top of her.
He caught some of his weight with his hands beside her shoulders, and knees to either side of hers, but the shock of his skin against hers sent air rushing from her throat as much as the weight of his torso on her back. His erect cock snugged against her backside. He shifted his hips until it settled between the cleft of her buttocks, then rolled his pelvis into her ass with too much purpose and intent to be anything as playful as suggestive.
It was her turn to moan. The mattress stifled the sound until he rested his weight on one forearm and fisted the other hand in her hair and not-quite-gently turned her face to the side. The rest of the sound vibrated into the twilight settling in her bedroom, and ended on a gasp when he tightened his grip on her hair.
“Okay?” he asked roughly.
He could have been asking about any number of things, permission, affirmation that she liked the direction he was taking things, confirmation that he wasn’t hurting her. It didn’t matter. Her answer was the same. “Yes,” she said.
His mouth landed hot and heavy on her ear, the unpredictable combination of kisses, licks, and nips jolting her from shudder to pliancy and back again. There was no getting lost in what he did, mind wandering to the grocery list, much less spiraling into the barbed wire of anxiety. He commanded her attention as he gathered more of her hair in his hand, baring her nape to his mouth. She braced her arms underneath her and pushed up. He didn’t take more of his weight but rather made her bear it, giving her something to writhe against. This was real, physical, definitely not in her head. She tipped her head forward, giving him full access to her neck, and felt the position resonate deep in her back brain. Pinned under a bigger, stronger male, oh yes.
He rewarded this surrender by closing his teeth on the sensitive skin and biting down. She cried out again, the sound somewhere between a yelp and a groan. He treated this with all the attention she wanted him to pay it, which was none. Instead he rolled his hips into her buttocks until she could feel his balls rasping against the backs of her thighs and the slick fluid coating her skin, the rhythm elemental and compelling, crushing her between his heavy body and the bed.
She struggled, torn between trying to spread her legs and getting out from underneath him so she could get her jeans off in the first place. Desire trashed her normally analytical brain, made her try to do everything at once, because if she didn’t get him inside her and moving with that same weight and power, she might go out of her mind.
“Fuck, that’s good,” he growled in her ear, bringing her attention to how her struggles must feel to him.
“Let me get my jeans off,” she snapped back.
With a chuckle he eased back onto his knees, his hand moving heavily from her hair to her shoulder, gentling over the scars, then down her back to her bottom, cupping and squeezing.
“Get to it,” he said, then plucked the condom from her fingers. She rolled on her side enough to get at the bunched denim, working the stubborn fabric over her feet and off. For a split second she watched him smooth the condom over his shaft. He knelt above her, the sword arrowing down his lean body, the dragon perched on his shoulder, fierce and ready to pounce, hands unself-consciously dealing with the practicalities of safe sex, his muscular body and taut expression as unsafe as anything she’d ever seen.
Then he coaxed her over until she was flat on her stomach again. The bed dipped as he braced himself on his elbow, gripped her hip and lifted her. Her heart rate tripled in a matter of moments. She’d done this before, of course, and there were two ways it could go. His legs outside of hers gave her control. His legs between hers gave him control. For a thrumming moment she wasn’t sure which option she wanted.
He spread her legs with his knees, and all thinking shut off again. She wedged her forearms under her shoulders and let her head drop forward. The curtain of her hair shut off her view in the mirrors on her closet doors, forcing her to focus on what she felt, but not before the starkly erotic lines of her spine and spread legs seared into her brain. She tried to ascertain
where his cock was, but all she could feel was the rough strength of his thighs against hers, holding her open for the penetration she craved.
It came not hard and fast as she expected, the slamming thrust that would pitch her forward, into the bed, but as a single, teasing nudge that opened her soft folds before withdrawing. The movement triggered a cascade of sensation along her nerves, tightening her muscles and drawing her head back. He did it again, no deeper, and she could hear the slick gliding sound as he dipped into her a third time.
“Not fun, is it?” he asked. He was braced over her, legs and arms confining her but giving her little actual contact with his skin. “Getting all worked up, then changing pace?”
She stared blankly at the headboard, white silk against the pale yellow walls, too focused on the promise of his cock to bother formulating words. His next thrust took him deep enough for the head to glide teasingly over her sweet spot. She gasped, tightened, arched even more.
“Hmm, found that,” he said, meditatively, then shifted his weight back to kiss her tailbone. “I like this line, from here,” he said, then licked his way up to the sensitive spot between her shoulder blades, “to here. Very provocative.”
The soles of her feet and palms of her hands tingled, then ignited into a burn the next time he thrust in, just a bit deeper, just a bit harder, the angle just a bit more precise. “Seth, please, I know you know what you’re doing to me,” she gasped.
“Sure do,” he said, amused.
She tried to push back and finish the process of getting him inside her, but he shifted his hand and prevented her from just getting it over with. As a result, she felt every half inch of his gliding strokes into her, setting off a cacophony of conflicting demands from her body. Her inner walls parted for him in soft, slow stages, but each stroke over her sweet spot curled her fingers and toes. By the time he seated himself fully inside her, she trembled on the verge of an orgasm, past pleading, past words, her entire body tight and shaking.