Against the Dark

by Carolyn Crane

  Her eyes went feral. “I can think of a lot of things. What do you want to do?”

  He kissed her. She opened to him sweetly, willingly. He pressed flush against her, feeling the swell of her breasts against his chest. His cock strained against his pants as he deepened the kiss, protecting her from the camera.

  “What I want,” he pulled her hair free of the twist, letting it fall over her shoulders. She shook it out as he slid his hand up over her breast, toying with the edge of the fabric at her chest. “What I want…” What he wanted was to be alone with her and not on camera. To kiss every inch of her, to lose himself in her secrets.

  “What I want is to strip off this dress.” He pulled aside the top, exposing a lacey bra, staying between her and the camera. He touched her nipple through the lace as he kissed her. She drew up to him, surging with feeling. He kissed her neck, let her feel him heading down. He pulled the bra aside, exposing her breast to the air. He let the anticipation build as he kissed ever downward, not quite reaching it, then he blew gently on it, watching her nipple pebble. She gasped when he dragged his tongue heavily across it. Women had been equations before this, a matter of getting from point A to point B with optimum pleasure.

  This woman sparked a chaos of feeling in him, made his sigmas and coefficients swirl in a tornado. He slid his hands around her hips. He wanted everything. He bit her nipple and her breath changed in octave. Lord, he loved her sounds.

  “What I want,” he whispered warm onto her nipple. What? To lose himself in this woman who’d squeezed his leg like they were partners. This woman he could feel confident about. He’d been performing for so long, and now this. Even this. He needed solace. Succor.

  She bent her head over his. He felt her lips form a soft kiss at the upper edge of his forehead, a soft little kiss and he wanted to collapse into her. That’s when he knew he was dangerously tired, dangerously raw.

  He yanked aside the other half of her bodice, freeing her other breast with far less delicacy. Another gasp.

  “What I want is to tear this dress off you. I don’t want any scrap of anything keeping me from you.” He pressed his hands over her hips, sucking a little on her neck. When he felt her pulse drum through his tongue he thought he’d lose it right there.

  He pressed another hand under her breast and plumped it up, then he closed his teeth over her nipple and sucked in a cool rush of air.

  She gasped. “Please.”

  He slid his hand onto her belly. “Are you thinking about the flower magnets?” he asked. “On your refrigerator?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  It was cruel, but this would play well for the recording.

  “What are you thinking about them? What part?”

  “You know what part.”

  “Say it.”

  “The kneading,” she said.

  He sucked in her nipple now and she gasped again. Briefly he wondered if he could make her come just off this. It would be very chaste and certainly the best he could do for her, though she’d hardly agree. None of this would be okay with her.

  He straightened up, kissed her, taking her nipple in his fingers now and rolling it between his thumb and his finger.

  “What about the kneading?” he asked.

  “Just that.” There was a little pleading in her voice. She wanted him to do it now.

  “Not just that,” he said. And then he reached around the back of her head and took hold of her hair. She let out a grateful breath. For the hair. It made him all the hotter for her. He tightened his grip. “What about it?”

  “Your rough callouses. You had to hold me up.”

  He tightened even more. “Look at me.”

  She opened her eyes, regarded him with a drugged look.

  He had to do something more for the recording. “You want to know what I’m going to do next?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to bend you right over. Maybe on the bed, I haven’t decided. Somewhere in this place.”

  Feverish breath. He could come just off hearing her so aroused.

  “I’ll touch you gently at first, sliding my fingers through your dripping-wet pussy. And then a little less gently. You know what I’m saying?”

  She was panting now. His glasses were fogging.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when I’m satisfied you’re completely under my total and utter control, I’ll let your hands loose.

  “You will?”

  She didn’t like that, but the fantasy was spinning on its own now. “You’ll need them for clutching the bedspread, darling.” He lowered his voice seductively. “Those callouses you felt in our refrigerator encounter will feel so much more intense when you’re bent over and completely wet for me. You’ll need to hold on hard. And then I’ll take you. I’ll push my giant cock right into you, filling you completely.”

  “Oh,” she panted, “good.”

  “It will be. And do you think I’ll stop touching you when I push my cock into you?”

  A smile. “I don’t think you will.”

  “You’d be right. Because I will fucking own you when you’re bent over for me. Totally and completely.”

  He slid his hand downward along her belly. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “Yes.”

  His thoughts exactly. Yes. He was losing control of himself a little bit.

  Her panting got rhythmic.

  “Don’t check out.” He fixed on her eyes. “Feel this.” He slid his hand lower. “You can’t do anything about it now. It’s just going to happen.”

  He watched her as he pressed his hand to her crotch, pressing clear through her dress and panties, right between her legs, rubbing just enough. Then he closed his fist on her hair, twisting to tighten it. She cried out. He felt her break apart under his touch and he stayed, kept the pressure there as she came. He rode it with her, lost in the sweet sound of her breath. Gently then, he removed his hand. He yanked her bra and the bodice of her dress back up over her breasts before he let her slide to the floor.

  She gave him a sated, sexy look, and then she smiled. “And now for the fucking,” she said.

  He scrubbed his hand over his face. He’d told her the story to wind her up, like a spider immobilizing his meal in a seductive web. But yes, the fucking. All he could think about was her, bent over in front of him. His hands on her perfect ass. The way it would feel to enter her, to bury his cock deep inside her warm, tight pussy.

  He did have callouses on his fingers. He did know how to use them, and she’d love it. He was more fixated on his little story than she probably was.

  Focus.

  He reached down and drew her up, hating that he’d fooled her as he had. Well, she’d hate it more. She’d be mad when she found out—it was quite a performance he’d gotten out of her.

  He shut his eyes, buried his face in her neck, forced himself to remember the mission. What the hell should he care if she was mad? She’d been mad at him the whole time. Because he was freaking blackmailing her. As a way of saving a bunch of kids.

  But he did care. Would there be a camera in the bathroom? He could bring her in there and close the door and tell her about the cameras.

  She kicked off a shoe and rubbed her knee on his thigh, regarding him with a heated gaze.

  He looked down at her. He was losing sight of his mission—the steps to the end result had been so clear before. He needed coffee, he thought. A cold shower. Something.

  “Come here, Cole,” she said in her breathy, lovely way, dark hair falling over her shoulders, rich and deep against the purple of her dress. She pulled her hands free, grabbed his belt, and pulled him to her. “You come here,” she said into a kiss.

  He did one better—he encircled her with his arms and picked her clear up. It was as if he was watching himself do this thing, go outside of the sensible parameters of his mission.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him as he carried her across the room to the bathroom.


  “Where are we going?”

  “Bathroom,” he grated out.

  “Why are we going in there?”

  “You’ll find out,” he said, like it was something dirty.

  He brought her in there and slammed the door with his foot.

  She turned and kissed him, unbuttoning his pants as he scanned the room for a camera.

  Focus.

  There were limited places you could put a camera in a bathroom. And moisture was bad for the minute parts, especially the lens. He grabbed a tissue from the box on the shelf, jarring it, which enabled him to determine that a dot was just a dot. Nothing else suspicious on the shelf. His bathroom was pretty spartan. He tipped his head up as she bit his earlobe.

  Earlobe.

  Concentration waning, he examined the ceiling, the light fixture. She had his zipper open. She grabbed his cock with a touch that was sure and strong.

  “Oh, man.” He smoothed his hands over her arms, willpower wavering.

  Focus.

  The light fixture was clear of cameras. The bathroom was clear.

  He could tell her now. She needed to know. They would figure out what to do.

  She kissed him, stroking him, pressing against him.

  “Angel,” he whispered. “When we were out there…”

  She looked up at him, stroking him firmly. “Yes?”

  “When we were out there…”

  “When we were out there you said you’d bend me over.” Lust blazed in her eyes as she tightened her grip on the base of his cock. His train of thought derailed.

  He took off his glasses, trying to collect himself.

  She let him go—she was kissing him, fumbling around with the skirt of her dress. He closed his eyes. Where was his cool? But then she stepped away, and the next thing he knew, she was holding something out to him.

  Her panties.

  Like a trained monkey, he put out his hand.

  She dropped them in with a saucy smile.

  He closed his hot fist over the cool silk, tightening his grip as he imagined her bare under there. Supply and demand. A woman naked under a dress. A bullet in the brain. What did anything matter?

  He dropped them and pulled her roughly to him, kissing her with all his life, sliding his hands down the smooth fabric and over her ass, back up, down her arms, frantic to cover every inch of her.

  She melted to him, biting his ear again. “Own me, baby,” she said.

  He pulled her off him and looked into her eyes, cupping her cheeks. He kissed her once, softly. Then he slid a hand over her silken strands—slowly, so she’d know what was coming. The angular planes of her face suffused with hunger as he slid his hand down to the end of her hair. He gripped it like a rope, doubling it around his fist, catching it up, being caught. He didn’t know the difference anymore. His power was gone.

  Her eyes glittered.

  A shiver ran through him. He closed his fist in her hair and hauled her to him, his mouth to her ear. He fumbled with her dress with his other hand, pushing it off her shoulder. “Get it off,” he said, like a madman. “All of it.” He let go of her hair and watched her peel off her dress, then her bra. “You are so beautiful,” he gasped. “Madly, perfectly beautiful.”

  “Come on—” she pulled him to her.

  “Oh no, you know what to do,” he said. “Turn around. Bend over for me.”

  Her breath hitched when he said it. He almost broke apart right then and there at the sound of that hitch.

  She turned around. She braced her hands on the sink, looking over her shoulder, playfully.

  He slid his hand over the silky smooth skin of her ass, then up, pressing his palm to the center of her back. “I need you lower, baby.” He pointed at the tub. “Grab onto the edge of that.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  She moved to the tub and grabbed the edge, loving that he’d demanded it. The ceramic calmed her palms, but the rest of her body felt excruciatingly alive. This was so wrong. And she was so crazy into it.

  He moved behind her, pulling his pants the rest of the way off, maybe. The wisp of air caused by his movements kissed her heated core and, oh, air had never felt more excruciatingly delicious, and she’d never been so turned on.

  He slid his hands up to her shoulders and she felt the drag of his callouses, as advertised. She swallowed as he lightly dragged his fingernails in the opposite direction, down her back, dragging along a trail of shivers. She arched in response to the intensity. Her sex felt lit up as a Fourth of July sky.

  “Angel,” he breathed.

  She was right on the edge of coming, out of control. She’d never liked being fucked from behind—it had always seemed slightly demeaning, but after his sexy story, it’s the only thing she wanted. Him inside her, his fingers on her, him everywhere, fucking her, demeaning her, anything, everything. She wanted him to own her like a god. She wanted him to consume her until every magnet in the world fell off of every refrigerator.

  She pressed her fingers onto the edge of the tub as his nails traveled down farther, over the curve of ass and down her thighs, to her calves and then her ankles.

  He knelt behind her and planted a kiss on the back of her thigh. And then another, kissing up, up to her ass. She felt his warm breath between her legs.

  Then he grabbed onto one of her ankles and lifted slightly. “Spread for me. Nice and wide.”

  She spread her legs wide, trembling with need. He gripped her thighs, and then, like a miracle, the tip of his tongue poked into the folds between her legs. She gasped as he licked her.

  “You are so there,” he whispered into her core, licking her again, again. Long strokes, then small. It was the small ones that nearly broke her apart.

  This was all so wrong. He was blackmailing her. Forcing her to do this job.

  And there was no place on the planet she’d rather be.

  He stood up behind her, kissing all the way along her spine, covering her, then gone. A crinkling noise. A condom.

  “God, you are hot,” he whispered. “You are so fucking hot.” Silence. Then, “I’ll hold onto you. I won’t let you fall, Angel. If it comes to that.”

  He gripped her hip with one hand and guided the head of his cock into her wet heat with the other.

  “I won’t let you fall,” he grated out.

  “Okay,” she said, with the vague sense that he wasn’t talking about fucking. But nothing mattered now except the thick head of his cock stretching her entrance. She arched her back, trying to coax him further, thinking she’d die if he stopped. She made a sound of frustration, just needing more of him. It seemed to affect Cole greatly; he dug his fingers into her hips and pressed into her in one dizzying slide, filling her with an almost animalistic fervor.

  “Oh man,” she said as the sensation transformed from discomfort with his size to a fullness so delicious she wanted him to pound into her, more, more more, just to get that discomfort back again, just to feel, feel, feel.

  He didn’t pound, however. He thrust into her long and strong on his own sweet time, owning her as he said he would. She breathed in response to his every move—he owned even her breath now. And then he slid a hand around her hip and touched her clit, lightly rubbing his finger around her nub, invading her with feeling, forward and backward with one slick and wonderfully, perfectly calloused finger.

  She felt like he was breaking her open. It was as if he knew about her emptiness, and he was filling her back up with all the danger and beauty the world could hold.

  “More,” she panted.

  He reached down and grabbed her hair and pulled her up to standing, never losing contact with her clit, never pulling out. He pressed her against the door, sandwiching her up there. Slowly, relentlessly, he fucked her. In and out. In and out.

  She panted, delirious with the pleasure of him. And oh, the hair. Nobody had ever done that. She never knew she’d enjoy something like hair pulling, but that was Cole—he dug out your secrets, even the ones you didn’t know you had. He to
ok everything.

  “Where did you go?” he asked.

  “Nowhere.”

  “Stay with me.” He gave her hair a yank and she nearly saw stars as she came in a wild explosion of feeling. And he thrust into her again, one last time, hard and final. His cock pulsed inside her as he came.

  He leaned his forehead onto her shoulder, breathing deep and heavy, sliding his hands all around her skin like he had to relearn her every contour now that the fucking was over. Then he went still. He pulled out of her.

  She turned to him and kissed him, enjoying the feel of his skin and just everything about him. There was a curious lightness in her head, and she realized with cautious surprise that it might be happiness. She felt happy. Sexy.

  How sad that it was so rare for her that it should be a surprise.

  “Cole,” she said, resting her hands on to his chest, looking into the bright gray of his eyes.

  He cupped her cheeks and kissed her. Then he turned away from her and flipped on the shower.

  “A shower?” she joked. “Well, I must say, you are quite dirty.” She ran her finger over a series of fat cigar-shaped scars on his upper back. Bullet wounds? Knife wounds? They looked old.

  When he turned around, she knew something was wrong. “What?”

  He concentrated on testing and adjusting the shower temperature. “This too hot or anything?”

  She stuck her hand in. “Good.”

  He flipped on the fan. “Get in.”

  She got in, and he got in with her. What was wrong?

  He let her be under the hot first. He soaped up a washcloth and washed her, reverently, and then washed himself in a slightly less lavish way.

  “What?” she said again, moving so he could be under the shower more.

  “I’m fine where I am,” he said.

  “Come on.” Playfully she nudged him under.

  He clutched her shoulders and whispered, “There’s a camera out in the bedroom. Maybe two. It’s been picking up everything out there.”

  “What?” And then she thought of all that had happened. “What?!?!”

  “Shhh. Not so loud, baby.”

  Anger descended over her. “Don’t baby me.” She eyed him furiously.