Forbidden to Touch

by JC Harroway

  I swallow hard, struggling to look away from the exquisite and candid beauty of her eyes, the thought of being inside her bare shutting down at least eighty per cent of my brain. ‘No—I care about you.’ I cup her face, my wrists still bound, fighting the urge to pull her mouth back down to mine for another kiss. ‘I’d never put you at risk.’

  ‘Me neither. And I’m on the pill.’ She smiles and then holds my face between her palms, her fingertips gliding into the hair at my temple with such tenderness I go completely still. ‘I’m going to remind you that it’s okay to let someone be there for you, to hold you up or catch you when you fall. That you don’t have to be strong alone. That’s it’s okay to trust me like you say you do.’

  She rises up a fraction, her eyes hypnotising, and slides the head of my bare cock back and forth through her wet folds, the friction almost too good.

  ‘Blair—’ I bite out a warning, clarity over what she wants from me, that she sees me so clearly, stripping me bare. Because physically I do trust her—fuck, I’d bend myself into a pretzel shape if that’s what she wanted. But the emotional stuff? The feelings I’m too chickenshit to probe? Handing her that much power...?

  Her hand slides across my chest, her fingertips trailing through my chest hair until her nails dig into my clenched pec.

  Her voice when she speaks carries the same, hypnotic, lulling tone. ‘You’re so big and strong. Powerful and in control. You make me feel small, somehow cherished, just with a look or a simple touch. I want you to feel the same way.’

  The fantastic torture to the head of my cock continues as she rocks her hips over me, and it takes everything I am not to plunge inside the tight, wet haven that awaits me. To take over, to block out her words, her caring until the pleasure swallows everything else—my concerns, my doubts, even my emerging feelings.

  ‘You take care of everyone,’ she says, ‘carry more than your share of the load.’ Her finger covers my mouth, stopping the interruptions sitting there. ‘For the next few minutes you’re mine, to do whatever I choose with. Don’t speak unless it’s to tell me how good something feels.’

  And before I can agree or disagree she scoots lower between my legs and takes my wet cock into her mouth. My hips buck—I can’t stop them—and she smiles, humming out encouragement and gripping the base of my erection until my vision tunnels. Everything stops—the noise of distant traffic and the hum of lawnmowers, the constant stream of thoughts and lists and ruminations plaguing my mind, even the shame of hurting this wonderful woman and the desire to make amends. Because everything becomes Blair and the wondrous things she’s doing to me, the feeling of letting go and being worshipped.

  My entire body is board-stiff under her, every muscle clenched as she sucks me down and watches my every reaction. Just when I start to buck my hips up off the sofa, chasing the paradise she promised, she stops, slides into position over me and sinks until I’m buried to the hilt inside her sweet, tight pussy.

  I groan aloud, my mind blank, every brain impulse focused on the firing of pleasure centres. With a crunch of my abs I sit up, loop my tied arms over her head and drag her close so I can bury my face against her wild heartbeat and ride out the shock waves of ecstasy buffeting my body.

  Her hands tangle in my hair and she holds me tight to her chest as her hips make the smallest of rocking motions. ‘You fill me, Reid. You feel so good and I’m going to make you come.’ I clutch her tighter, speechless, certain nothing in my life so far compares to this moment.

  I raise my head, kissing her until she pulls away for breath, her rhythm choppy and uncoordinated. ‘Come with me,’ I say.

  At her nod, her whimper, I dive for one of her nipples. At the first scrape of my facial hair over the sensitive bud, she cries out and squeezes my dick. I nuzzle her breast, lave all my attention on the nipple—sucking and licking and scraping until she’s a panting, writhing mess, undulating in my lap while she clings to my shoulders, a fearless goddess guiding us towards oblivion.

  She smiles, the astounding sight almost better than it feels to be deep inside her. I crush her close, until her breasts flatten against my chest and rub my lips over hers, needing more, needing everything.

  She pulls away, ducks from between my arms, pushing them over my head. ‘Lie back.’

  I follow her command, sliding back onto the sofa, my hands itching to grab her arse and shunt her with me.

  But she’s there. She braces her arms beside my head on the sofa, her pleasure-drunk stare latched to mine shifting the organs in my chest. If ever I wanted a do-over at relationships, if ever I deserved a second chance, she’d be it for me—she couldn’t be more perfect. I swallow back the lump of feelings in my throat and watch every move she makes so I can store every second of her in my long-term memory.

  She starts to rock again, tossing her long hair back and forcing her breasts forward. I’m splayed, helpless, tied. I grit my teeth against the pleasure of her riding me, her moans of ecstasy growing more vocal.

  ‘Reid.’ She groans my name, reaching to cup both her breasts with her own hands.

  My restraint breaks with the easily snapped hair ties. I can’t take any more, can’t watch and not touch. Can’t deny myself the act of pleasuring her as she’s driving me close to the edge. I’m greedy for her. I grasp the cheeks of her arse, gently parting them and slipping my fingers between to her opening so I feel myself sliding inside her tight sex with every rock of her hips.

  ‘That’s right, take what you want from me. Take what you need.’ I want more hands to explore every inch at once—she’s so fucking tempting—but I console myself with the two I have, filling one with her perfect breast while the other caresses her backside.

  She starts to rock her hips in earnest, finding her rhythm again, and the sight of her above me, the feel of her clamped around me, makes me close to blowing. I bite back a curse, my jaw clenched as I will away the sharp gush of pleasure bathing my dick. She’s driving, but I’m not going anywhere without her.

  My thumb and forefinger roll her nipple as she picks up her pace. She takes my other hand, sliding it back between her cheeks.

  ‘Touch me here.’

  I obey, feather a fingertip lightly over her tight pucker so she’s dragged back into a sensual haze I never want to see end. And then I’m lost, no longer caring who’s in charge or who’s letting go, as long as we finish together.

  ‘Blair, you trust me, don’t you?’

  She nods on a strangled whimper. ‘Yes.’

  The glaze to her eyes tells me she’s too far gone to care whose fantasy this started out as and who’s in control.

  ‘I trust you too.’ Giving her what she wants is the easiest thing in the world.

  She cries out, her hips bumping up and down on my lap. ‘Yes, Reid.’

  With every downward stroke, my finger skirts her rear, each fractured cry, each moan telling me I’m right on target to amp up her pleasure while staving off my own. Because I want her ruined, as she’s ruined me. I want her broken and desperate and out of her mind, because that’s where my head is.

  Reluctantly dragging my eyes away from the sight of her riding me, her hair wild and her face flushed, I turn my head sharply to the left, catching our reflection in the mirror over the fireplace, our reflections erotic, like our own, private adult movie.

  She looks too, as I’d known she would, her gasp followed by a long, low moan.

  ‘Touch your nipples,’ I order, because I need both my hands to finish this the way I want to. She obeys, her finger circling and pinching where mine have left off, and I grip both of her arse cheeks, adding upward tilts of my pelvis to her down-strokes so every thrust drags a cry from her arched throat.

  ‘Reid, I’ve got you.’ She tears her eyes from our wildly fucking reflections to stare down at me.

  ‘I’ve got you too—come with me.’ I pull her cheeks apart, grinding
our hips together while my fingers probe deeper into her crease to stimulate more nerves.

  She cries out, her orgasm wracking her entire body rigid and I feel her spasms around my dick and against the tip of my finger.

  I buck up into her tight, clasping warmth a handful more times and join her with a roar of release that rivals any I’ve ever experienced.

  By the time speech is possible once more, we’ve been sprawled on the sofa in a naked tangle for several minutes. There’s still a furnace bubbling inside me, but I spy goose pimples on Blair’s arm, so I tug the throw from the back of the sofa over us. That’s when I feel the rhythmic shudders of her chest against mine, which tell me she’s laughing.

  I lift her chin from my chest, forcing her to look up at me. ‘Great...that’s what every man wants after some of his best moves—to be laughed at.’

  She covers her mouth, ungainly snorts she can’t hold in escaping. ‘I’m sorry—I just...’ She presses her lips together and then gives up, freeing a cascade of chuckles.

  I join her, although I have no idea what we’re laughing at, but it’s infectious. She’s infectious, effortlessly worming her way under my skin and into my psyche. Offering tantalising glimpses of what might be, glimpses I’d thought I was long past craving. Dangerous.

  ‘I’ve never met anyone who finds sex that hot funny,’ I say, kissing the top of her head and breathing in coconuts. ‘So hot my sofa is scorched.’

  She collapses on top of me, kissing her mirth into submission. ‘It’s not that. I just... I can’t believe you tripped over your shoe. It was hilarious.’

  My ego could take a battering, but with her I don’t seem to have any. I grin. ‘Oh, good—I was aiming for sexy.’

  ‘Oh, it was that, too. And I told you I’d catch you.’ She snuggles back into my side and a sigh of contentment leaves me, but doubts sneak in to fill the void, doubts that she could want more, because after that, after today with my family, seeing how perfectly she fits—I’m certain I want more than sex. But does she? Could she take this seriously outside of our sex-only arrangement? I’ve been so long entrenched in my single life, safe, secure, steady. Could I have more? Could I have it with this amazing woman? Would she want it with me? My track record speaks against me, and while our age gap works for a casual fling, would she want something more with a man my age? And surely the fact that she’s still hung up on her ex’s cheating, wanting to banish ghosts, as she said, means she’s not fully over him.

  Her fingers toy with the hair on my chest. I pull her hand away so I can kiss the tips of her fingers as I grapple with that last revelation. I should get up, make us a drink, suggest a shower, offer to drive her back to her car. I’m sure we both have a long day ahead tomorrow. But a part of me can’t leave it alone, perhaps the part which feels the flicker of jealousy that while I’m imagining dates she’s thinking about ways to exorcise her ex.

  I choke out a question, the only honest thing I feel comfortable asking. ‘So did you make some new memories?’

  I feel her nod against my cheek and the whoosh of air she eventually releases, and grip her closer on instinct.

  ‘The day after Josh left me,’ she says, ‘I rushed out and bought a new sofa, knowing I’d never be able to look at the old one, let alone sit on it. But it’s funny—no matter where I place the new one in that room, it never looks quite right.’ She huffs. ‘Or perhaps that’s just my designer brain being a perfectionist.’

  I stroke my fingers through her hair, trying to untangle some of the strands without hurting her. ‘It’s okay to be a perfectionist. It’s who you are.’ I allow the weight of my hand to settle between her shoulder blades before I add, ‘Has he ever apologised?’

  ‘Josh?’

  Her body stiffens and I shift my leg so I can tangle it with hers to stop her escaping. ‘Yeah.’ I know he can’t help the way he felt for someone else, but he should have come clean from the start instead of risking her finding out the way she did.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says in clipped tones, telling me she doesn’t want to talk about this, that I’ve gone too far. But she’s laid me open, used our attraction to each other and my growing feelings to pry confessions from me. Time to even the balance. And she can’t be fully over him until she’s had some closure.

  ‘What do you mean? Has he tried?’ Unease slides over my skin.

  She shrugs, her eyes shuttering the emotion from the green-brown depths of her irises. ‘I changed the locks after he left. I’ve never answered his calls or read his emails. I don’t care if he’s apologised because I don’t want to hear it.’

  My belly twists, banishing the last of the high from the incredible sex. She hasn’t forgiven him, so she’s not free to move on. Does she still harbour feelings after all this time? And where the fuck does that leave me and my newly acknowledged revelations?

  I frame my words in a soothing tone. ‘I don’t want to patronise you, but until you allow him to apologise, what he did to you becomes compounded. You can’t move on until you’ve given him the chance to at least say he’s sorry for deceiving you.’

  She raises her head and levels her bullshit look on me. ‘Is that what worked for you with Sadie?’

  Now it’s my turn to stiffen, her attack close to the very heart of me, as exposed as I feel. ‘That was different.’

  ‘How? Because it happened to you?’ She juts her chin, her barriers rebuilding.

  A sense of claustrophobia presses in on me. Am I being a fool here? ‘No—’ I extricate my limbs from hers and slide to the edge of the sofa, restless with vulnerability and the hangover of literally having my emotions fucked from me. ‘Because she attacked more than me. She went after my business, my family, my father in particular, and threatened the future of the Faulkner Group for Kit’s unborn child and any children Drake and Kenzie might have.’

  The room grows tense with our silence. When I look her face is ashen with shock, or perhaps revulsion that I allowed myself, my family and business to be so vulnerable. But if I believe the latter, I’ll have to punch some inanimate object. Instead I stand and search for my jeans.

  ‘How?’ she whispers.

  I’ve been exposed enough over the past hour, but the power balance has shifted, as if she’s freed me somehow from holding everything inside. I’m not the only man on the planet to be taken to the cleaners by a greedy ex, and it’s in the past. I’ve spent the years since Sadie dedicated to the Faulkner Group, repaying my father for rescuing me the only way I could—through hard work and sheer fucking persistence until the company is as safeguarded and future-proofed as possible. And now I have the more pressing concern of his health.

  ‘She wanted out of the marriage and I let her go. She hired a ruthless lawyer and I didn’t contend her claims. I was generous with maintenance because I felt guilty that I hadn’t put in as much effort to making things work as I should have. Because she was right—I did put the business and therefore the interests of my family before our marriage.’ I sigh past the shame trying to constrict my lungs. ‘But then she went after the Faulkner.’

  I grab my T-shirt, needing the protection it provides from her searching eyes, still wary. But she was correct about me—I do keep everything afloat. It’s my job, my life’s work. I’m good at it, determination to ensure this latest sideswipe is managed with the same single-minded focus returning, so I finish my tale.

  ‘It was a stressful time. Kit had just lost his wife and Drake had just come back to the family business after leaving the army.’ The words still taste foul, a reminder of the added worry and uncertainty I put my family through. ‘If it wasn’t for Graham bailing me out and paying her off, the legal wrangling would have likely dragged on for years.’ I scrub at my face and level a look of challenge at her. She wants to play big league—well, this is it. She claims she can catch me—well, I come with baggage. She wants my trust—well, it’s a two-way street, an
d now I’m certain she’s hiding something. Better I know now, before this goes any further, before my feelings develop, if she still harbours feelings for her shithead ex.

  But I’m out of luck. Her expression closes down, defences up, reminding me of the Blair who walked into my office and waved her contract a couple of weeks ago. ‘Well, we’re not that different, then,’ she says.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘We’ve both been betrayed—do the details matter?’

  I collect her underwear and clothes from the floor and hand them over, trying to shove the disappointment back in, but it sticks, as if it’s expanded and no longer fits the same space.

  ‘I guess not.’ Unless one of us is still holding on to the past when the other has glimpsed the future. I could push. I want to push. To wring her dry until she’s as brittle as I feel, but I’m aware it’s late and the renovations start tomorrow. I’ll bide my time. And, in the meantime, guard my feelings more circumspectly. I’ve already shared more with her today than I’ve shared with anyone else, perhaps ever, so I let it drop and offer her a lighthearted wink and myself a route back to the casual safety zone. ‘Only I’m older and more cynical. There’s still time for you.’

  She offers up a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, grasping the shift from confessional to conversational with a return flash of humour. ‘Loads of time—I’m a spring chicken.’ She tugs on her underwear and jeans. ‘I’m going to head home—big day tomorrow.’

  ‘You don’t want to stay?’

  She shakes her head and ducks into her shirt while I exhale the relief she’s turned down my genuine offer. Perhaps we both need distance. Time to regroup.

  ‘Thanks, but I have an early start tomorrow,’ she says. ‘And I don’t want to upset my grumpy old client.’

  I tug her to her feet, push her hair back from her still flushed face and swoop in for a lingering kiss I hope will banish the creep of doubts. ‘I’m sure he’d forgive you. And I’ll drive you to your car.’