by Holley Trent
“Are you trying to make me sleepy, rubio?”
“Nope. Just enjoying the view. What I can see of it, anyway. Nice curves.”
“Glad you think so.” She heaved herself onto her arms and crawled to the bed’s edge, conscious of Curt’s gaze on her rear end. When she sat up again, it was with an unopened tub of lubricant.
“What is that?”
“Silicone, amongst other things.”
“You don’t need that.”
“I disagree.” She held the tube out to him.
He took it, but his expression was mystified.
He understood better when she turned around on her hands and knees and looked back at him.
“Fuck.”
“That’s the general idea.” She wiggled her ass and he pressed a hand against one cheek, but when his press wasn’t forthcoming, she panicked.
There she was, laid more bare than ever before, gifting him with the only sort of virginity she had left, and he hesitated.
She started to sit back, but a firm hand nudged her shoulders downward to the bed.
Goosebumps tingled as he trailed fingers down her spine and lingered at the base before parting her cheeks.
After a long pause, she felt the warm slick of oily liquid pooling at the top of her buttocks and down into the valley between them. She hissed as his finger probed the rim of her anus, distributing the product and barely breaching her muscle.
He inched closer, and when his sheathed cock grazed the inside of her, she wondered if he’d plow in, full speed ahead. But no, he was cautious. There was that calculated, skillful exploration she should have expected of him, because even at his most vigorous, he’d always been careful. He never caused her pain unless she wanted it.
This was an instance where she most certainly did not want it, but she wanted the experience. That’s what going to Ireland had been about in a way: putting herself outside of her comfort zone and hoping to discover something wonderful. She was committed to going along for the ride…or being the ride, in this case, because she liked this man that much. It wasn’t even about the sex. It was about offering him something voluntarily. Something that wasn’t convenient.
Her toes curled as he probed her with first one finger, then another, stretching her. The sensation wasn’t altogether unpleasant, especially not in conjunction with the pressure of his other hand on her clitoris. No, that was quite nice.
She changed her mind.
She wanted his cock back in her and his talented fingers working her back door at the same time, but he obviously had other ideas.
He reclaimed his fingers, pulled her hips back, and slowly pressed the tip of his cock against her tighter entrance, lingering there, teasing for a moment and she ground her teeth in preparation.
She took a deep breath and relaxed as his fingers flitted over her hips, down her spine, and to the backs of her thighs. He rubbed, parting her more without even approaching ground zero. Then he was there. The gate breached, and he slipped himself in more and more, until her impulse was not to force him out, but keep him in.
“How are you, darlin’?” Curt whispered as he pulled himself out.
“Wonderful,” she managed, and it was truth, at least once he engaged her empty sex with two of his fingers.
Holy shit.
As he pistoned in and out of her back entry while scissoring his fingers inside her wet slit and flicking at her clit with his other hand, she suddenly felt very dizzy–and like she’d wasted an orgasm. Now this, which would probably render her walk crooked for several days afterward, this was a special treat.
“I’m not going to last very long, darlin’.”
All she could manage was a pant followed by a whimper when his fingers eased off her clit. He thrusted deeper, faster, and now tapped her g-spot with the fingertips of his right hand with a hummingbird-like speed. When she clamped her muscles around his fingers, biting her own bedspread as she came again, he shuddered behind her, spilling his load.
He paused there before slowly easing out and rolling onto his back.
“Jaysus.”
“Like that?” Erica asked. She flattened onto her belly, boneless. Submissive.
“It’s nice, but between you and me, it’s not my favorite.”
She sat up, stunned. “What?”
His eyes were closed as he pushed up to put his back against the headboard.
“Feels good being clenched that tight, but there’s something so damned hot about knowing there’s a chance I could knock you up, even when I try to be so careful.” His eyes opened and her pulse thundered in her ears.
“I’m sure that frightens you,” he said, voice utterly bland. “I think it’s a testosterone thing. Some animal instinct. It’s like a claiming, I guess. Men are gross that way.”
She leaned on her forearms and studied him. “You feel that way with every woman?”
He gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head in response. “I’ve done a lot of anal. I don’t want to do it with you, unless you prefer it.”
Huh. The man was absolutely confounding. She cleared her throat and pushed back so she was sitting on her heels. “Good to know.”
She had no words. Her thoughts were mostly a series of exclamation points and question marks streaming in her brain as if they were printed on a ticker. A claiming, he’d said. And what had Carla said? That she must have been doing something right? She still didn’t know what it was. That scared her even more than his admission that he was aroused at the thought of impregnating her.
That she wouldn’t mind so much.
He had a lot going for him. Smarts. Looks. An unusual patience for her quirks. What she would mind, however, was if he got bored and left her empty. Used up, just like she’d been when she left Tate.
“Uh…” She watched him pinch the end of the condom and work the sheath off. “I’ll get you something to clean up with.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m going to jump in the shower. Maybe we can go for a walk?”
She paused there at the edge of the bed. “A walk?”
He bobbed his head toward the window as he stood. “There’s a little lake back there, right?”
“Yeah. Has a little one-mile trail. I’ve lived here three years and have never walked it.”
“Well, there you go.” He paused behind her as he passed and pressed his lips against that favorite spot of his on her neck. It made her want to melt that he’d kiss her there after they’d done something so kinky.
“Uh…I’ll finish dinner while you shower.”
He turned around and winked. “I’ll hurry then.”
Oh, she was gone. Absolutely gone.
Chapter 12
Erica and Curt sat thigh-to-thigh on the bench beneath the single pole light near the lake trail, tucking into the sandwiches she had wrapped in foil and toted outdoors under her arm. They didn’t speak for a long while, just enjoyed good food and Curt feeling, for once, that this woman wasn’t going to talk him to death about things that were not of consequence. When she talked, she said things he wanted to hear. Usually.
“So, what were you working on when I came home?” she asked, probing a finger around the frayed edges of a hole in his jeans.
He set his sandwich down on the bench beside him and blew a raspberry. “That’s…complicated.”
“You mean you can’t distill it enough for a photographer to understand?” Her voice was light, but there was a tightness in the set of her jaw. A darkness in her gaze. He didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, not even unintentionally. If he was going to have a long-term go of this thing–something he had absolutely no idea how to manage–it seemed reasonable he be honest about things up front and give her the chance to accept or rebuff. He wanted it to be her choice.
“No, darlin’. The math bit isn’t particularly complicated once you know what you’re looking for. What’s complicated is the reason why I have to do it.”
“You said it wasn’t related to your PhD?�
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“No. That’s all done except for a couple small engagements. I…” He tipped his head back and counted the constellations he knew. “I work for a think tank, right? My current project is for a large manufacturing company. Essentially, I’ve been tasked with figuring out how to best steal from the company.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
He put up his hands. “The company is aware. They know we’re going to try to do it and that we’ll probably succeed. From there, we figure out ways to prevent other people from doing it to them.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah.” He scoffed. “Not really what I thought I’d be doing when I grew up.”
And how ironic was that being his first assignment? It seemed custom-made for him, given he’d recently unraveled a similar real-life theft.
“How do you even go about instigating something like that? You’ve got to have intimate knowledge about the company, don’t you?”
“I don’t, personally, but my brain works in a weird way. I compartmentalize and sort things other people tend to lump together.” Like love and sex. He turned away to cringe. “I just need to look at the numbers. The organization’s structure is just tangential for me.”
“How do you get experience for that?”
“Uh…” He blew up a breath upward to clear his hair from his glasses. Go ahead and tell her. That’ll test her mettle. Show her the chap she’s dealing with. He pulled his left leg under him and turned his body toward hers. “Uh, do you follow much Irish news?”
She shook her head. “None.”
“British?”
“Other than television and gossip reporting?” She shook her head again. “I hardly even follow local news. Stresses me out.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Okay, try this on for size, then. Four years ago my mother was convicted of embezzlement and money laundering and sent to prison. That’s why I was in Ireland a few weeks ago. They finally let her out because I proved she didn’t do it.”
Her lips parted and eyes widened. He waited for her to say something, but if he’d been in her shoes, what would he have said? “Oh, that sucks”?
Finally, she sat back and shook her head. “That is super-crazy. And, don’t hate me for asking, but–”
“Why did I think she didn’t do it?”
“I guess you’ve been asked.”
“Dozens of times in the past couple of weeks. I’ll tell you the same thing I told all the news agencies who’ve been calling. If you met my mother you’d understand it’s just impossible. She’s the reason I’m a mathematician. She’s so bloody good with numbers it’s scary. They’re like playthings for her. But, she’s the least self-assured genius I’ve ever encountered. Sometimes she does stupid shit because she wants to make people happy and I assumed that’s what happened. She let down her guard and got used.”
For some reason he didn’t understand, she suddenly looked very sad with the way she worried at her lip and averted her gaze from his. “Coworker?”
Some Canada geese fluttering on the opposite end of the pond stole his attention a moment before he answered. “No. My father.”
He waited for her to react in some significant way, but beyond a furrowing of her forehead marking her confusion, she said nothing. Did nothing. He figured it was better than her fleeing with some excuse, so he continued.
“He used her credentials and let himself into the system.”
“Why would he do that? Betray her that way?”
He shrugged. “Because it was convenient.” The painful truth.
“And this was a big deal in Ireland?”
“Fuck, that’s an understatment.” His head swam as all the memories flooded back. It’d been such a chaotic time with all the exposure–all the unwanted attention. He closed his eyes and tipped his head over the bench back again. “The Post, Tribune, the fucking BBC, Daily Mail, all that lot caught wind of it. She worked for a company that manufactured specialty components for military weapons. Their systems were supposed to be unbreachable, but obviously not from the inside. Not from behind the desk of the accountant. And she’s this cute little thing, you know? Everyone was so shocked. Acted like she was a fucking serial killer with all the commotion.”
“Explain to me how you figured out what he did.”
“It was a matter of following the money. As far as crimes go, it wasn’t all that intelligent of one, but the police didn’t investigate it that hard because they were complicit. I had some help, obviously, or I’d have never been able to access the records. I had to convince a bunch of people to let me look, and it was tough to do under my father’s nose. He was a sergeant, after all. He nearly caught wind of what I was up to, a time or two.”
When she squeezed his thigh he sat more upright and looked at her. The expression she wore wasn’t disgust, but still one he couldn’t quite interpret.
“Were they ever in love?”
Now that he hadn’t expected. Were they? Fuck if he knew. Wasn’t that a two-sided thing? Didn’t both parties have to fall head-over-heels?
He pulled his collar away from his neck, feeling suddenly very claustrophobic, and cleared his throat. “My dad said he didn’t mean for it to fall back on her, but I don’t buy it. And Mum…I suppose she thinks she can’t do any better than him and hasn’t tried. They got divorced ten years ago. He’s moved on. Repeatedly. He swoops back around whenever he needs something, and she just hands it over. If that’s what love is, I don’t want it.”
Erica gathered up their paper trash and tossed it into the nearby can, her jaw set with her resolve or disgust or what, he didn’t know. After brushing her hands clean on her pants, she turned to him. “So, what now?”
He didn’t know what she meant. Who was she asking about, his parents? His mother’s ordeal? He and Erica?
He hedged. “I’ll let you know.”
“I’d like that.” She hooked her arm through the crook of his and they ambled around the lake toward her building. As they passed the mailboxes, she gave his arm a squeeze.
He was glad to see her expression had brightened somewhat. “Up for dessert?”
“Are you kidding me?” He laughed and was glad for the levity, even if it was forced. “No way. Hope you didn’t have anything complicated prepared.”
“Oh, I’m not going to guilt you this time. Just some more cake from the freezer. Maybe some coffee.”
“Yes to the coffee, then. Maybe we can Irish it up a bit and spend the night singing Celtic dirges in our drunken stupor.”
“I can think of things that are far more fun than that.”
“Woman, you are insatiable.”
She giggled and slid her key into the lock. “First time I’ve ever been told that.”
“Hell, I’d hope I’ve been the only man afforded the privilege of screwing you wordless. A guy’s gotta keep his self-esteem intact.”
She leaned on the doorknob and opened her mouth to say something but seemed to think better of it. “I’ll make the coffee. I’ll be up late editing photos, probably.”
He followed her in and locked the door behind him. “Then I’ll get back to my numbers.”
“I love that you can entertain yourself.”
“Most men can.”
“Sure about that?”
* * * *
Curt had fallen asleep in the middle of Erica’s bed with a stack of documents on his chest and his glasses at a slight angle. She clamped a hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle, padded out the room slowly, and turned the hall light back on to see her way to the living room. She took her personal camera out of its case and returned to the bedroom. As she shed the lens cap, she knelt at the bedside, admiring the good work Mother Nature had done in sculpting his features. One more small blast of estrogen in utero and he might have been born pretty instead of handsome. He hid it well enough, though, behind those god-awful plastic frames and under that shaggy haircut that he probably thought had been a good idea at the time. Or was it even a haircut?
She focused her lens on the parted lips moving as if he was reciting mathematical theorems subconsciously. Hell, maybe he was. Maybe he was solving world crises in his sleep.
Although he was so damned guarded, with each heavy conversation they trudged through, she understood better the type of man he was. Even as he tried to hold her back at arm’s length–and she let him because that’s the game she was playing–she fell deeper, more wildly, more inescapably in love with him.
And he couldn’t love her back, and she fucking understood why. If she’d had a son with Tate, he’d probably be just as cynical as Curt. She understood his mother on a very basic level and didn’t fault her for her desire to trust. It felt good to trust. On the other hand, having the person you’ve forgiven repeatedly puts his needs–no, wants–above your wellbeing...
Well. It was a hard thing to wrap one’s head around.
She knelt on the edge of the bed and focused her camera on his cocked glasses and the aquiline nose holding them up, more or less. She scooted backward and widened her frame to take in his fingers, those gentle talented digits that had brought her to pleasure so many times, draped over his pile of accountancy records.
For the first time she noticed the small, tan, heart-shaped birthmark just beneath the hair on the knuckle on his left fourth finger, in the exact spot a band could cover. It was a funny thing that if he ever managed to let that wall down, he would hide his heart beneath a ring. Love covered up by a symbol of institution.
She didn’t have anything against the institution of marriage for other people, but she thought some people hid behind it. Used it as a shield and held it in front of themselves long after the affection was all gone. That’s the way her parents were. She couldn’t tell if they’d ever loved each other. They’d made a commitment on paper and had it filed away in some dusty municipal office back in Havana. That made it forever in their views.
Erica wanted to believe in forever. She wanted to believe Curt was her forever. Sure felt like it, but at the same time her innate skepticism gave her pause. One part of her psyche wanted her to be aggressive, to move forward and open up. The other part of her told her she deserved a loser like Tate who thought of her as little more than some pantry staple he could swap out whenever he was in the mood for a substitution, a different flavor. Someone he could use, and throw under the bus if necessary.