by Lily Harlem
He jumped up, clicked on the iPod and then shoved off his jeans and boxers as he walked back to the bed.
He dropped on top of me, gave a lopsided grin then set about kissing his way down my neck.
“Oh God,” Ian groaned, flopping his forehead against my collarbone. “The words work but this guy’s sappy voice really gets on my nerves.”
“I like James Blunt,” I said, reaching for a condom and thinking You’re Beautiful was a sweet choice of song after what he’d just said about me being perfect.
“Let’s hit shuffle again,” he bargained. “Get something with a bit more pace, a bit more rhythm.”
“Okay.” I shrugged.
He jumped up again, flicked the iPod with a definite impatience to his movement and then was hovering back over me.
I traced my finger over the tattoo on his inner arm. It was like Chinese writing or something, but more intricate, more curly and pretty. I liked it but it must have hurt like hell on that sensitive patch of flesh. “You’re not allowed to change the next one,” I said. “Whatever it is, it stays.” I was impatient to get down to business now.
“Suits me,” he said as he ducked to suckle my nipple. I arched into him, delighting in the suction he was creating and the gentle nipping of his teeth. He really was getting it just right, just how I liked it.
The iPod howled like a wolf. The eerie sound echoed around my four walls.
I ran my hands through his hair and shut my eyes. Perhaps Thriller could be sexy and it was certainly sonically dense enough to mask our noise.
His hands were wandering, sliding up my thighs toward the juncture of my legs. He ruffled through my tuft of coppery pubes and nudged my thighs apart with his knee.
An annoying zombie with outstretched, dangling arms loomed toward me, face ashen, dirty fingernails bloody.
Damn it!
I wished I had earplugs. I wished my flatmates had earplugs so I had no need for cover-up music. It was messing with my mind and my body.
“Where’s the condom?” Ian asked, sitting back on his heels, his breathing coming fast and hard. I stared at the neat row of bricked abs running down his stomach, visible now I was seeing him in daylight.
“Here.” I opened the wrapper and passed it to him. The blood that had been rushing to my clit was running scared, beating away at a hundred miles an hour, being chased by the bass of the music. He rolled the condom down his impressive erection.
I tried to suppress the image of creatures crawling from the mud in the graveyard, eyes wide and ratty black teeth grinning manically at me.
Ian looked hungrily at my waiting body, swallowed hard and then lay back over me. His weight was delicious, just right, half supported on his elbows, half pressed onto me. I squirmed, dragged in a breath full of his divine scent—man and musk, a lazy morning body infused with testosterone and coffee. I spread my legs wider. He kissed me again as he slid expertly into my hot flesh.
I gasped. His cock was long and thick and so hard it was like steel. He tunneled to the hilt on that first push. I felt impaled, possessed by him—it was glorious. I gripped him with my vaginal muscles and he groaned appreciatively in my ear.
The song blasted on. I could visualize the cheerleader with her frizzy hair, wide eyes and hands shaking at her screaming mouth.
I broke the kiss and stared at the dusty floral lampshade to rid my mind of the doomed girl in the Thriller video.
Ian thrust harder and began to rotate his pelvis against my clit. Any other situation, any other time, back in my old room, I’d have been clawing the ceiling, trembling with the imminent arrival of a fantastic climax. He palmed my right breast and nuzzled my neck. I tried to catch a spark as the song thumped out the chorus.
“What’s up?” he asked, suddenly stilling all movements.
“Nothing.”
He muttered something and began to pull away. I saw a flash of disappointment cross his eyes.
“It’s okay.” I wrapped my legs around his thighs and clasped his taut biceps. “Carry on, you’re doing great.” I tried to reach for a kiss. He was a cute guy, even cuter in the light of day and I really hadn’t lived up to his expectations. It wasn’t his fault my mind was being overtaken by zombies.
“Yeah, but you’re not.” He dodged my lips and slipped from me, swiveled to sit on the side of the bed and fisted his cock. His beautiful golden shoulders hunched and his head hung low. He was breathing hard.
“Ian,” I said, laying my hand on his back, keen to make it up to him.
“Don’t touch me.” He shivered, a trickle of spasms that seemed to rattle up his entire spinal column. “I can’t handle it. If you’re not into it, what’s the point?”
“I am into it.”
“No, you’re not. It’s obvious you’re trying to think of something else, anything except me.”
“That’s not true.”
“You’re staring at the ceiling, eyes glazed, groaning randomly, expecting me to believe you’re getting ready to climax.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He stood and turned to face me, his engorged erection jutted forward, the swollen head an angry burgundy. It looked painful. “Get dressed.” He snapped off the condom and aimed it at the bin. “We’re going out.”
“But—”
“No buts. I don’t give a damn what else you had planned for today.” His eyes narrowed and his jaw set. “Cancel it.”
Chapter Three
Half an hour later, Ian and I were in a taxi crawling through London traffic. The July day was heating up and London would soon fill with the smell of exhaust fumes, sweet ice creams and a million sunscreened bodies. I was grateful for the taxi’s cool air-conditioning breezing around me.
“Where are we going?” I asked. I hadn’t heard him speak to the driver when we’d got in.
“On a first date.” He pulled a pair of black shades from the top pocket of his battered leather jacket and slipped them on.
“A first date. Bit late for that, isn’t it?”
He turned to me and I saw my reflection in his dark lenses. My red hair was its usual untamed mess, but I’d managed to secure it back from my face with a clip so it looked semi-controlled. My pale, gray eyes were no longer panda-like and boasted a fresh, neat layer of mascara, and my lips had a soft-pink sheen to them.
“You and I, Nina, are going to get to know each other like we’re normal people. Not two loners who picked each other up in a dark corner of a bar and then had disastrous sex to inappropriate music. We’re going to have a day out. And all day long I’m going to be hoping that I might get lucky, that you might just like me enough to join me in bed tonight, and if that goes well, hell, I may even ask you out on a second date.” He shifted on the seat as though he was still uncomfortable in the trouser department.
“You’ve got this all worked out, haven’t you?”
“Well, someone needs to. It’s clear you’ve no idea what you’re up to.”
“I resent that.” I frowned and folded my arms over my bottle-green t-shirt.
He reached for my hand, drew it to his mouth and kissed my palm. “Let’s start fresh. I like you and I’m guessing you like me.” He paused and treated me to a dazzling example of his naughty-boy smile. “So let’s have fun…at the zoo.”
“The zoo!”
“Yeah, it’ll be great. I can learn all about your favorite animals.”
I stared at him incredulously. That was not what I’d been expecting from my leather-clad, brooding, two-day-old-stubble date.
“Hey,” he said, suddenly leaning toward the driver. “Turn this up, will you?”
“Sure, mate, I love this one.” The driver flicked the dial on the radio and a beating song I’d heard before rang out—
The plastic girls ain’t got nothing I need
Gimme real life, give me real skin, give me real love.
“Do you like this song?” Ian asked.
“Yeah, it’s good.”
“Just good
?” He frowned.
I grinned. He was obviously a fan. “It’s really good.”
He tipped his head and whispered into my ear, “Would it suit you in the bedroom?”
I placed my hand on his scratchy cheek and ran my thumb over his soft bottom lip. “Yes, it’s got a nice fast rhythm, but…”
His smile slipped. “There’s a but?”
“But we’re supposed to be starting out, so how would you know about my disastrous taste in mattress music?”
He grinned and his eyes crinkled at the corners. “You got me there.” He pressed a kiss to my mouth and I felt myself melt inside and for a second, a tiny moment, the gray emptiness was filled.
“Here we are folks, London Zoo,” the driver said.
“Thanks.” Ian leaned forward with a twenty in his hand. “Much appreciated.” I opened the door and stepped onto the busy pavement.
“What number?” the taxi driver asked Ian.
“Seven at the last check.”
“Way to go, I’ll be rooting for you.”
“Er, yeah, cheers.” Ian unfolded beside me and, after shutting the door, cupped my elbow and steered me toward the black rotary gates leading into the zoo.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Nothing. I just gave him a good tip.”
“Oh, but…?” Number seven? What was Ian talking about, and why was the driver rooting for him? We reached a small octagonal kiosk with a glass window and Ian pulled out his wallet. “Wait, wait, I’ll pay our admission,” I said, scrabbling for my purse.
“Absolutely not.” Ian hastily shoved several notes through the slat in the window.
“Seriously, you paid the taxi so I’ll pay for the zoo.”
“Nina, will you stop being so damn independent and let me treat you to a day out. I’ve dragged you here, let me pay. I want your company, or don’t you get that?”
The girl in the kiosk, peroxide hair, ruby lips, earlobes lined with gold studs, stared at Ian.
“Okay,” I said, putting my purse away. “Thanks.”
Ian whisked up the tickets and wrapped an arm around my waist.
“Can you just sign this…please?” The kiosk girl smiled at Ian and pushed a slip of paper and a pen under the window.
Ian paused. A small muscle in his cheek flexed. He spun back around, picked up the pen and scrawled across the paper. Then he smiled at the wide-eyed girl and poked it back. “There you go.”
“What was all that about?” I asked as Ian turned to me.
Shrugging, he said, “I dunno,” with a downward twist of his mouth. “It was nothing, come on. Let’s get souvenirs.” He wound an arm around my waist again and ushered me forward.
“Don’t you get souvenirs at the end of a day out?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder at the girl in the kiosk who was still watching us and now had her iPhone out.
“Yeah, but I think with the way the sun is shining, we’re both gonna need hats.” He ducked into a garish shop with a window full of fluffy monkeys hanging from twine and bright-green crocodiles swimming on blue tissue paper.
I stopped and blinked in the sudden darkness.
“These are good,” he said with a grin, picking up two matching black caps with penguins marching over the rim. They had “I’ve ducked and dived at London Zoo” embroidered on the back. “Here, try it.” He dropped one onto my wild curls and tugged it down. “Suits you,” he said, putting one on his own head and yanking it low over his shades.
“You reckon?”
“Yeah, it’s a good look.” He shoved some money over the counter and we headed back into the dazzling sunshine.
“Where first?” he asked, studying a signpost. “Gorillas, bugs or tigers?”
“Oh, bugs,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “I love creepy crawlies.”
“You do?” He looked surprised.
“What, ’cause I’m a girl I’m supposed to run a mile from insects?”
Ian laughed. “No not at all, you just surprised me.”
“Good. I don’t like to be predictable.”
He linked his fingers with mine and pulled me in the direction of the bug house. “One thing is for certain, Nina, you’re anything but predictable.”
****
The gloomy bug house was hot and humid and practically empty. Ian shrugged out of his leather as we lingered over the stick insects, trying to count the twenty-three the sign told us were living there. We moved on in the eerie darkness, squirming at the revolting cockroaches and amazed by giant millipedes.
“Now these are really scary,” Ian said, stopping in front of a glass box housing a black widow spider.
“Why?” I asked, cupping my hands around my eyes for a closer look. She had long, elegant legs and a huge, shiny black body spotted with two red dots that looked weirdly heart-shaped.
“Because after they’ve mated,” Ian dumped his jacket on a nearby bench, “they eat their partner.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled my body close against his. The heat of his breath tickled my neck and was loud in the quiet of the hot house.
“You don’t fancy that then?” I asked, resting my hands on his forearms and delighting in his sudden desire to cuddle me.
“I think maybe I had a lucky escape last night.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, perhaps if you hadn’t been so worried about your flatmates hearing us, you’d have eaten me up as a midnight snack.” He pressed a kiss to my neck. Unable to help myself, I tipped my head for another, relishing the shiver his touch sent over my scalp. “Perhaps if you’d let loose, you’d have become a wild man-eater and I wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting out alive.”
“Now you’re being dramatic.” I turned to face him.
“So why do you do it?”
“What?”
“Why do you pick up strangers and sleep with them?”
A flush of heat traveled to my cheeks. “Are you complaining?” I wriggled from his grip and stepped away.
“Hell no.” He followed me and I backed up until my spine pressed against the display glass. “I consider myself very, very fortunate.” He stopped just in front of me.
“So why bring it up?”
“I just want to know what’s going on in your head.”
“Well, what’s going on in yours? You slept with me, too, and you hardly know me.”
“Yeah, but I am a bloke and it’s different—”
“There’s nothing fucking different about it.” I moved to walk away but he grabbed my wrist and spun me around. Next thing I knew, he’d tucked us between two display cabinets and pinned me to the wall.
“Don’t walk away,” he said, the peak of his cap touching mine. “I’m not insulting you or trying to start an argument. I just can’t believe a gorgeous girl like you hasn’t already been snapped up.” He paused. “Or is that the problem?” He pulled off his shades, poked them down the V of his t-shirt and stared at me through the shadows. “Has someone hurt you and you’re trying to get over them by sleeping with countless, faceless men?” Disappointment dulled his pupils. “Am I just a nameless fuck helping you get some other moron out of your heart?”
“God, no, that’s not it at all!” I shook my head frantically. That was so not what I was thinking about Ian right now.
He swallowed and pulled in a breath. “So tell me, Nina, why did you sleep with me last night?”
I turned my head to the dark corner. I’d never tried to verbalize my weekend shagging urge—I didn’t know if I could, especially when lately it had been so unsatisfying that it was hardly justified.
“I’m not going to judge you.” Ian slid his palm over my cheek and turned my face to his. “I’m just trying to get to know you. I want to know what you need, what you want.”
“What everyone else wants,” I said, thinking about all the nameless fucks who had nothing I wanted and then Dee and Fiona who’d found their happily ever afters.
“Which is?” Ian urged.
I dragged in a breath and felt an apprehensive tightening in my sternum. “Sex is fun, it’s something to look forward to at the weekend, a release of tension and something to giggle about with my friends, but…” I swallowed down a lump the size of a rhino. “But all this time I thought that was what I wanted, just sex. But now I know there’s something else out there…”
“Go on.” He drew his thick, dark eyebrows together. His unblinking gaze bored into mine.
“I’ve realized that I want the type of love my friends have found,” I blurted. “Intimacy with commitment and honesty, the lasting type.”
He slipped his hand from my cheek and rested it around my neck. I was sure he’d be able to feel my heart beating wildly beneath my skin. “And have you found it yet?” he murmured. “Love, that is.”
“No. Well, maybe once, several years ago, but we separated on good terms. It was a mutual breakup. We’d grown out of each other. There were few tears on either side.”
“And no one since?”
“Not that I would use the ‘L’ word for, no.”
Ian grinned suddenly, as if I’d just told him some fabulous piece of news. “Oh, you are such a sweet little challenge, Nina.” His lips were just a whisper from mine. “Such an irresistible challenge.”
“What do you mean?”
“A challenge to please in the bedroom and, even better, a challenge to capture the heart of. Now I’ve been your dragon, I hope I can redeem myself and be your knight in shining armor.” He pressed his lips on mine and darted his tongue into my mouth. I couldn’t resist, I curled my hands over his shoulders, squeezed my fingers into the soft cotton and pulled my body up against his. He had such a wonderful way with words.
He groaned deep in his throat and intensified the kiss. Our teeth touched briefly, our hats knocked and my mind began to spin. All I could think of was the way he was holding me, as if he would never let me go. His words rang in my ears—he wanted to please me and capture my heart. Could I let myself fall in love after all this time? Could I be with just one person instead of constantly being on the prowl? Something inside me was telling me maybe I could—with Ian.