'No bra?' he purred. 'I like that. I like it very much.' His long hands cupped her breasts as if they'd been fashioned just for that purpose.
Paula groaned, her knees weakening at his touch, the wall solid and reassuring at her back. She felt as if her breasts had been aching to be held ever since she'd woken up, sweating in her bed. The way he fondled her and manipulated her was such a relief, such a gift. As he strummed her bright, aching nipples, the moisture between her legs welled and overflowed, escaping the crotch of her knickers and slipping down her legs.
'Good?' he whispered, thumbs moving. Flicking ...
Paula felt like a doll pinned to the wall. Her arms dangled at her sides, she was too caught up in the delicious sensations even to reach for him in return. Thudding pleasure beat in her body like a triangle. Breast, breast, sex. She rolled her head involuntarily against the stonework, her mouth lolling open, her eyes closed.
For a moment, whispers of darkness flittered through her mind, but with a cry, almost a shout, she banished them. Her eyes flew open and she found her companion watching her closely again, his hands stilling, ready to withdraw. His lips opened as if to question her, but she forestalled him, reaching up to touch them, to run her fingertips across their velvety surface as she pressed her body into his hold.
'No questions,' she said firmly, rolling her shoulders against the wall, loving that he was quick to resume pleasuring her despite this unwanted hiatus in her concentration. With her free hand, she foraged beneath his jacket again, cupping one tight buttock and bringing his crotch close to hers.
'Not even one?' he persisted, then sucked impishly on her fingers, circling his hips so she could feel his tense erection.
Paula shimmied in a syncopated movement. He was big, so very big, oh goody!
'All right, just one. Because I like you.' She cast a quick look downwards, lowering her lashes, and he laughed, instantly getting her meaning.
'What's your name?'
It was the question she'd expected, but what she hadn't expected was the power of that other name, springing involuntarily to her lips as if it were her own.
Isidora.
The second it had dashed through her mind, she fought to banish it but the ease with which it had almost escaped was terrifying. Shaking, she clung more tightly to the hard muscled round of her lover's backside.
'Paula! My name is Paula!' It was an evocation. An affirmation. A shout of defiance, though spoken softly and huskily.
'Paula what?' he whispered, one hand still at her breast while another slid over her ribs, her waist, her hips.
'No, no, that's another question. It's my turn to ask now.'
'Ask away.' His voice was husky, teasing. His hand was beneath her brief leather skirt now, searching and seeking. The gliding contact of his fingertips was pleasantly cool against her burning hot skin.
'What's your name?'
She felt vaguely disappointed with her own mundane question, yet had no idea what other thing she might have wanted to ask. Tossing her head and rocking her buttocks against the dirty stone wall, she almost growled at any goddamn impediment to having sex with this unknown man.
'Rafe. My name is Rafe.' He mocked her with a smile as his exploration reached her panties. 'Good God, what are these?' He flicked at the edges, plucking at the firm elastic texture of the Lycra. 'I thought only Bridget Jones wore these big reinforced jobs?' He smoothed his hand around and gripped her bottom cheek through the clinging fabric, letting his fingers press the crotch piece from behind.
Paula grunted with frustration. She'd exerted herself with these knickers, pulled them on at the last minute, fighting the darker compulsion to go commando. The mark on her belly was invisible but it could be felt, she was sure of it. She wanted it hidden, out of sight, out of mind. It just showed the depths of confusion she was mired in. She'd come out to get a man, but she'd trussed herself up in a chastity belt.
His other hand slid down, tweaking up her skirt to her waist. He held her bottom tight, pressing her against him, as she pressed him against herself in return. Unspeaking, they began to circle their hips in silently co-ordinated tango, caressing each other through denim and Lycra like two teenagers sneaking a stolen frottage behind the bike sheds.
The sensations were delicious, but she wanted him inside her. She wanted this 'Rafe' inside her, Paula. Not Isidora. Not Count André from the dream. Not any figment of her stupid fragmented imagination. She wanted to feel, really feel. And celebrate life.
'You're going to have to take these off, love,' said Rafe, more gently. When she looked up at him, so close, she could see concern for her in his eyes, a sense of her troubles.
'No! Please ... let me pull them to one side.'
Reaching down, she dragged at the damp crotch of the control panties. They were tight, and it was awkward, but she made an entrance for him. Her clit throbbed at the proximity of her fingers, burning and aching.
He was perplexed, she could tell, but he shrugged, released her momentarily, and slid his hand into his back pocket for a condom.
'Just a second,' he whispered, then surprised her with a kiss at the corner of her mouth. It was soft as thistledown, almost platonic, but strangely sweet. Moments later, he was tearing open the tiny package and then wrapping his cock in the silky latex.
Paula glanced down, eager to see him, and caught her breath at the raw size and girth of his flesh. He was fiercely and angrily red beneath the sheer film of rubber, the big head bulbous and flared, and the tiny eye open. She seemed to have special vision to see every detail in the dark.
He was beautiful, huge and animal, a totem of sex. Her own sex wept and shimmered, silently calling to him.
Still holding aside the gusset of her knickers, she reached for him with her free hand, folding her fingers around him and cradling him gently. He felt like life, the very essence of it. He almost hummed with it. She could feel blood slowly pulsating in his veins.
With care, with trepidation, she began to caress him, even as she felt the lush slide of her juices down her inner thigh, released as they were now by the exposure of her sex. The night air was warm, but it was cooler than her cleft, and a naughty breeze played and teased her moist, pouched flesh.
There was pleasure just in standing here, against a wall, holding a man's cock in her hand while exposure to the night kissed her intimate nakedness. She moaned softly, still stroking Rafe as she bent her knees and wafted her hips to and fro. There was pleasure revelling in her own rudeness and wantonness and knowing that it was her own will that had brought her to this state.
'Let me touch you, love,' whispered Rafe, but before she could give her assent he was already making moves.
His fingers jostled hers as they moved into her sex, coasting up and down and side to side in her tropical lubrication, but never actually settling on her clit. Behind her back, his other hand slipped slyly beneath the edge of the Lycra and snuck unerringly into the groove of her bottom. One fingertip began delicately playing with her anus, catching the rhythm of the ones that taunted her clitoris.
'Oh ... oh ... oh...'
The sounds were involuntary, as were her movements. She rocked harder against the wall, her hips swivelling and moving, seeking that perfect contact while Rafe almost cruelly denied it. He played ruthlessly with her bottom, but the knot of nerves that screamed for attention he still avoided.
'You want it, don't you?'
His voice was velvet, wicked. It reminded her momentarily of her dream again. Arousal. Denial. The battle of the sexes.
'You want me to finger your clit, don't you?'
His mouth was at the side of her face and his tongue slowly slid the whole length of her cheek. At the same time, the pad of his finger pressed against the tight pucker of her arse.
Without thinking, she squeezed his cock and he hissed through his teeth.
'Don't worry, baby, I like it rough. You won't make me come before I'm ready to.'
His teasing fingers left her se
x and settled over her own fingers where they held aside the fierce knickers. He stroked her hand and the rosette of her bottom in a leisurely counterpoint.
'Please ... please ... please ...'
The frustration was agonising and intense. It was almost as if her clit was shouting even if she was only groaning softly. She knew she could have abandoned his cock and just rubbed herself and brought about her own completion, but she felt compelled to maintain her hold on his exquisite flesh. The feel of his hardness was everything that was light in the midst of dark and anguish.
'Just ask for what you want and I'll give it to you.'
He sounded so reasonable. So normal. Paula laughed suddenly, her heart lifting at the absurdity of finding herself standing in an alley with her fingers wrapped around a man's big cock and his finger beginning to push inside her bottom.
'I want you to rub my clit and bring me off. And then I want you to fuck me.' She smiled at him in the gloom and saw his white teeth gleam in answer. 'There, is that plain enough for you?'
'Perfection!' He laughed too, a happy triumphant sound as his fingers slid from the back of her hand to her clit.
The touch, when it came, was nothing like she'd anticipated. He caressed her lightly, almost delicately, and with a strange respect for the tenderness of her flesh. The feel of it was peculiarly nurturing and loving.
And it was this that made her cry aloud and come. As her sex lurched and clenched, she felt as if she'd been waiting to come like this for a long, long time. Since before she'd set eyes on him, since before she'd entered the Raven, since before she'd begun her determined attempt to wrest her mind back to be solely her own.
She'd been waiting for this orgasm since she'd woken in a strange hotel room with over two days missing from her life and a ghostly, disquieting memory of utter evil.
For a moment, as she clung to Rafe, both hands around him to hold herself up, she felt the brush of that darkness now. But embracing the pleasure of his long hands, she gritted her teeth, drew on his strength and managed to vanquish it.
Seconds later, he was manhandling her. In a good way. Pressing her against the wall, he lifted her leg a little, to give himself a better angle, then, taking the head of his own cock, he fitted it neatly between her labia.
'Help me,' he whispered, adjusting their bodies, manoeuvring his loins and her loins for perfect alignment. Paula pulled at her knickers, wrenching them furiously aside, allowing more access, and Rafe jerked his hips, plunging upwards with a hard thrust, right inside her.
Paula groaned long and brokenly as he filled her, savouring the sensation of stretching, and being lifted by his smooth, rhythmic lunges. Her body clamped down on him in another intense orgasm, yet in the calm part of her mind she experienced that unexpected feeling of safety again.
In a grimy alley, amongst the litter and smells, she was sheltered from harm. And as it began to rain, sudden and hard, she barely noticed it.
For the first time since that dreadful, disoriented awakening, she wasn't afraid.
3 Inner Light, Inner Dark
It was raining again.
Jonathan Sumner glowered at the damp landscape outside. Why had it suddenly started raining all the time? There'd been barely a drop since that fateful night when they'd got lost on their way to meet Paula, but in the last day or so there'd been some truly torrential showers.
Not for the first time since they'd returned to Sedge-wick Priory, he wondered what was happening with their friend. They'd rowed and parted on bad terms, and he'd sensed there was something deeply amiss with her. He felt enormous guilt that they'd not hung around to enlighten her, but it was probably best that Paula never remembered running into Isidora anyway. His anxiety over Belinda's welfare, and the need to get back here for her sake, had taken priority.
Sighing, he turned from the window and the perpetual rain, and back towards his lover. Belinda was restless today, moving against the pillow as if plagued by a nightmare, even though it was mid-afternoon when she normally slept quite soundly.
He padded over to the bed and, almost on a reflex, looked up at the portrait that hung icon-like above it.
'Bloody André Von Kastel, what have you done to us?'
The man who had been Belinda's lover – and his own – looked down on them, his blue eyes mild. Not long ago, Jonathan would have imagined that the mysterious European nobleman was watching them, monitoring their every move from within the portrait, but now it was just paint, a fine likeness but nothing more.
Count André had gone, to wherever he and his beloved Arabelle had intended to go, but they'd left an indefinable void and a sense of dislocation in their wake. Not to mention an unforeseen side effect.
'Fuck you!' muttered Jonathan, glancing from the painting to his darling Belinda, twisting and turning, her new norm since she'd helped the count perform the exotic ritual that had set him free.
He slid into bed beside her and cuddled up. The pretty Victorian nightdress she'd been wearing was bunched and crumpled, and she had one hand nestled firmly between her legs. Well, that was one side effect he hoped wouldn't go away, her increased libido. Their friend Michiko reckoned Belinda's bizarre sleep patterns – and her newly blue eyes – would normalise eventually, but Jonathan quite fancied a girlfriend who was always up for sex. Or even a fiancée. Once things settled down, he'd decided to pop the question.
In the meantime, they were here, back at Sedgewick Priory. The Japanese sorceress said they'd done exactly the right thing. Only here could the magic dissipate correctly and be reabsorbed into the old house's mysterious structure. According to the saying, time would heal all wounds. But how much time? He'd somehow lost track of it. Had they been here a week? A month? Longer? The days passed as if in a dream...
With a sigh, Belinda reached for him. She was still drowsing, but her body seemed constantly tuned to his, always ready and wanting to pleasure them both. With her eyes still closed, she took his hand, drew it to her sex, and folded her own hand over it, encouraging him to play with her.
Oh, baby, thought Jonathan. Caressing the woman he loved was never a hardship and, still touching her, he manoeuvred their bodies until they were lying like spoons and he could fondle her breasts beneath her soft nightgown while he dabbled his fingers in her cleft and strummed her clitoris.
God, she was so wet! So pliant and slick. He could feel her juiciness coating his fingers and running so copiously it oozed out over the inside of her thighs. While he pressed against her bottom his cock was as rigid as a bone. Shimmying against her, he stimulated himself, rocking and rubbing.
Slowly and leisurely, they moved against each other. Belinda still hadn't spoken and he wasn't sure quite how conscious she was. Was she thinking of him or was she still dreaming of André? He supposed it was possible. After all, her brief acquaintance with the enchanted count had been intense.
But as she began to murmur, his fears melted, and he smiled and pushed himself harder against her.
'Oh, Johnny,' she sighed, rotating her bottom while still holding onto his hand and making sure it didn't stray from between her legs, 'you know just what a sleepy girl needs.' As he flicked her harder, she grunted with pleasure, the sound uncouth, yet at the same time strangely lyrical. The wild cries excited him and made his cock throb and judder.
Suddenly, his own need to come was urgent. Belinda was climaxing, her body arching and jerking beneath his hand as she muttered his name and a litany of husky swearwords. But the covers around them were twisted, and so was the voluminous nightgown. He kicked his legs a bit, but the tangle only seemed to get worse.
Moaning with impatience, he managed to wrench down his boxers and push his cock against the soft curve of Belinda's bottom. The smooth yet cuddly fabric of her nightdress was unexpectedly delicious against his penis, and shoving and pumping against it was exquisite, as good as a real fuck, but piquantly sweet and different. Within moments, as Belinda groaned again, he joined her in pleasure, shooting his semen against her cott
on-covered buttocks.
Replete, Jonathan found he too wanted to drift away and slumber. He wasn't on Belinda's schedule, but sleep began to envelop him. The bed was warm and the frowsty, foxy smell of sex was soporific.
And yet just as his consciousness frayed at the edges, his beloved seemed to wake up. She tossed her head a little, her body momentarily tensing.
'I'm worried about Paula, Johnny, aren't you?' she whispered, patting his hand where it still rested on her belly. 'We shouldn't have just left her like that. Even if she did tell us to fuck off. She wasn't thinking straight. We should have helped her more.' There was raw anguish in her voice, and Jonathan felt it too. The nagging guilt resurfaced and he wondered whether to express it or try to calm Belinda's fears.
He decided on a compromise. The Priory was in 'protection' mode, magic rendering it hard to find, and almost as difficult to get out of – but they could still try.
'Try not to worry, love. We'll do something. Tomorrow, I'll see if I can get a signal on my mobile or find out how Oren contacts the outside world.' Lord André's faithful servant was the epitome of helpfulness about everything except that, and it was difficult to argue with a person who couldn't speak. 'Failing that, if you feel a bit more normal, we can see if the car will start so we can visit her.' He laced his fingers with his lover's to reassure her and comfort her fears. 'I mean, we can always come back here again, if we need to. We've almost certainly lost our jobs now, anyway, so what's the difference if we play hooky a bit longer?'
'I love you, Johnny. You're the best.' Belinda's voice was barely a breath, and yet her sweet words managed to make him smile.
But as he slipped into sleep, he couldn't stop brooding about their friend.
The smell of sandalwood filled Rafe's nostrils.
Mostly he liked it. It was a smell that normally meant sex to him, and he liked that too. But today, the pungent scent was strangely dispiriting. He wanted to sneeze but he managed to suppress it.
Gothic Heat Page 4