Death

by Madhuri Pavamani

  “Well, hello to you, too.” She looked down and laughed and fuuuuuuuuuck, she was magic.

  I dragged my finger along the skin of her throat and she stretched and curved into my touch and I could do this forever because watching her move when she liked the way you touched her was otherworldly. I pressed my lips to the freckles right on her pulse point—I couldn’t not kiss her—and listened as she moaned low and long, and my dick throbbed in time to the rhythm of her voice.

  “Does it hurt?” I breathed into her ear because it made her crazy, then pulled away from the soft of her skin and watched as she steadied and shook her head but didn’t speak and I knew it hurt. “Liar.” I smiled and she smiled and for long quiet seconds we got lost in each other.

  “Dutch—” she whispered.

  “Shhhh.” I traced the outline of her smile and cut her off midsentence, lips parted, about to say something until my touch reduced her to half-closed eyes and wholly turned on. She was goddamned sin and the best kind of savior and I wanted to spend long, languid hours worshipping at her altar. She sighed as my fingertips danced along the rise of her clavicle and I leaned close to her mouth because I wanted to capture that sound with my lips but I also wanted to watch as she waited for my kiss.

  Her tongue flicked out and touched her lower lip and I could smell that faint sweetness of her mouth and god, I knew she would taste like heaven. I wanted to lick her, learn her all over again. Instead I tangled my breath with hers until she whimpered in frustration and I pulled away with another smile.

  She wanted me all over her as much as I wanted to be all over her.

  It was written on her face when she opened her eyes and locked with mine and wrapped her gorgeous thick thigh around my waist and pulled me close. My dick rubbed against her panties and I groaned and pressed myself into all her wet warmth as she circled her hips in a slow dance of beautiful fuckery.

  “Juma,” I closed my eyes and moaned before I pushed her away, “behave before I come all over you without fucking you at all.”

  She licked her lips and her nipples pressed through the thin material of her T-shirt as my words worked magic on her body, fucking her mind, leaving her pussy swollen and wet.

  “I can smell you,” I whispered into her ear as she sighed and pressed against me, her nipples rock-hard points begging for something, anything from me. “I know your pussy is soaked and your clit wants to be sucked,” I said as I traced circles against her skin, crisscrossing her nipple, my touch brief and barely there. Juma’s body undulated in time with my touch, all of her desperate for more.

  “Dutch.”

  “What, baby?” I almost licked her lip, and she whined as I played with her nipple.

  “Please,” she opened her eyes and begged, and all of her screamed to be fucked, but at the moment I wanted something much more immediate. I dipped down and grazed her nipple through her shirt with my teeth while she watched my every move, her lips parted and eyes on fire. “Oh god, Dutch.” She fisted her hands through my hair as I lifted her shirt and exposed her breast.

  The brown of her skin always made me a little crazy, but it was the softness that killed me every time. I could touch her forever and even that wouldn’t be enough. I pressed my lips to her ribs and kissed up the side of her waist until I reached the perfect curve of her breast. She held her breath as I flicked my tongue over her rock-hard nipple and she rose off the bed, her back arched, giving herself to me to do with as I pleased. And what I pleased was to suck and tease her until she begged me to stop.

  Which of course she wouldn’t because she wanted me to do all these things to her—the nasty, the sexy, the painful, the raw. And then she wanted me to do it all again.

  I lifted her shirt over her head, then stood mesmerized as she lay back down, naked but for her slip of panties that were so soaked, they outlined the shape of her lips. I knew if I spread her knees wider, I would see her clit pressed against the silk, hard and waiting to be sucked. But right now was all about her perfect tits and licking and teasing and biting her left nipple until it was as hard as the right.

  “Oh god,” Juma groaned, and held me in place with one hand as I tongued her down, her other hand cupping her breast. I bit her nipple, then fit myself between her thighs and rubbed my throbbing dick all over her and she was a goddamned sexy mess of sweat and precome and pussy juice and holy fuck, I needed to slow down before I forgot myself and shot my load all over her thighs.

  None of that schoolboy shit for this goddess.

  So I dialed everything down, caught my breath, and calmed.

  Juma sat up as I leaned over her, caging her in with my arms and legs, and kissed me. And although in that moment she seemed made of heavy breath and pure desire, her kiss was tender and light, a flutter of softness against my mouth. I closed my eyes to the need for her, the possibility that I might capture her when she least expected and fit her under my skin forever.

  She touched my hair and my brow and cupped my face and I recalled that first night in Frank’s when I wanted all of this and more, then laughed off the possibility as I threw curses at all her perfection, certain none of her could ever be mine. Now as her warm breath teased me everywhere, her lips hinted at kisses, I reveled in the fact I belonged to her in ways I could not imagine, had yet to learn.

  My dark found a home in her light.

  “Hey, mister—” She leaned back into the pillow and rapped on the side of my head. “—where’d you go?”

  “That night I saw you in Frank’s,” I replied as I held her gaze and bent low to circle her nipple with my tongue. It was dark and hard as fuck and fully insistent I suck it and lick it and suck it again. She watched me the whole time, lip bitten and eyes wild, and I knew she would watch me do anything to her body. “Remember that envelope?”

  I released her nipple and watched it glisten with my saliva and heave with each of her deep breaths and even though I’d just asked her a question that she was probably going to answer, I was much more interested in her other nipple.

  She was, too.

  I licked it hard as she tossed her head back and fisted the bedsheets and begged for all kinds of unintelligible things. Then I bit her and she screamed and I could smell her pussy everywhere as her desire flooded the room and all of it—the sounds, the smells, the feel of her skin, the release of her sighs—shot straight to my dick.

  Slow down, Dutch.

  The words banged around in my brain as I fought the urge to ram myself so deep inside her, I might become lost forever in her soft wet heat.

  Instead.

  I eased her legs apart and made a space for myself, resting my head on her belly, the wet heat of her pussy warm against my chest. She tangled her fingers in my hair and we both breathed and settled.

  “The envelope,” I finally spoke.

  “Oh yeah,” she replied, her voice low and husky and sounding a little more like herself than before. “How could I forget that envelope you kept pushing around that booth? My excuse for talking to you.”

  I raised a brow upon hearing that admission.

  “I was such a fucking asshole,” I recalled as I traced my finger along the jut of her hip bone.

  She laughed and held me tight. “I didn’t know that when I was sitting at the bar, trying to think of ways to talk to you.”

  I shifted so I could see her eyes. “Bullshit.”

  “The second I walked into Frank’s that night and saw you in that booth, all angry and dark and so fucking beautiful, I was yours.” She dragged her finger along my lower lip until I captured it and sucked and her lips parted but no sound came out. I released her finger and pressed myself into her pussy and she leaned back and moaned and spread her legs wider for me, but we weren’t there yet. I ghosted my breath over her panties and the scent of her desire damn near killed me on the spot, then I gathered myself and what little self-control remained, and kissed the inside of her thigh instead.

  “You were saying—” I settled back into my spot and remind
ed her. “—the second you walked into Frank’s.”

  “I wanted you, right then and there,” she replied when she could speak again, the hint of a slow smile in her voice. “All of you. Like I’d never wanted anyone. Ownership of your body wasn’t going to be enough, I knew that. I wanted your soul. I wanted your darkness and that simmering rage and I wanted to show it some love, give it a home inside me, wrap it in all kinds of tenderness, kiss it to sleep at night,” she said, and twisted my hair around her finger, “so when I saw the envelope, I took it as a sign.”

  “Of what?”

  “I was supposed to talk to you, the universe wanted to bring us together.” She chuckled low. “Then you snarled and spat at me and I knew it was on.”

  I laughed as I recalled that evening when we knew nothing more about the other but the simple fact that whatever existed between us was enormous and overwhelming and motherfucking intense.

  “That envelope had your name inside,” I confessed.

  Juma sat up on her elbows and stared at me.

  “I didn’t know it then,” I said. “I tossed it in the street that night, a kind of fuck-you to The Gate.”

  “And then what?” she asked, still watching me intently.

  “Then I had dinner with Khan and he informed me of its contents,” I replied, as vague as possible because I still wasn’t ready to talk about all the details of dinner that night, especially those involving Ish. Juma knew the important shit, the stuff that affected her. The rest was mine, to share in due time.

  She touched my face and tipped my chin in her direction and all of her looked so sad because she knew what took place whenever Khan and I sat down together and she knew it firsthand, and as much as I hated that shit, I also kind of loved it. Because it didn’t scare her. If anything, it made her larger than life and terrifying in ways I would never have imagined her capable of. She was Juma—love and light and magic. But she was also murder and death and devastation. And I loved all the pieces that fit together to make the whole.

  “Don’t be sad for me,” I said as I leaned up on my hands and knees and kissed her belly. “I have everything I need right here,” I spoke into her skin as my lips trailed up her side and under her breast and over her nipple.

  “Dutch,” she sighed, and begged, “please,” as I squeezed her nipple between my thumb and forefinger while I sucked the other, “don’t stop.”

  But I did.

  Because this moment was all about revelry and her and time. And I knew we didn’t have much of the latter left, and I wasn’t going to dwell on that fact but I sure as hell was going to enjoy her and make the moment goddamn wonderful. So I stopped and sat back and just watched as she lay there, a jumbled mess of lust and craving, and all of it was for me and holy fuck.

  Juma opened her eyes, caught me watching her, and smiled a smile full of mischief and sex, love and madness. And I thought to myself, There’s no more perfect curve than that of her lips.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered so low, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.

  I cocked my head to the side and she winked and goddamn, this woman. She made my dick jump with the most mundane of movements.

  “Dutch Mathew,” she said louder, and I swear each word pumped all my blood into my groin, “please,” a slow wide gorgeous smile, “bring that sexy-as-fuck mouth over here and kiss me.”

  I moved up her body until we were face-to-face, all her softness pressed into my planes, our bodies wrapped around each other, brown and browner, and I framed her face with my hands. She closed her eyes and I kissed her lashes, she sighed and ran her hands over my ass.

  “You are so beautiful,” I whispered as my lips learned her jaw and the hollows of her cheeks and her eyes and the tip of her very perfect nose. I kissed her freckles and her skin flushed, my tongue teased at her lips and they parted with desire. “I love you, Juma Landry,” I breathed against her mouth, and the slow burn for her that had lived in my blood ever since the moment I saw her in the subway station turned into a full-blown out-of-control fire. I pressed my lips to hers and everything ignited.

  Time fell away and I lost my sense of sound and sight and smell, my world became one of taste and touch as I parted her lips and curled my tongue around hers and kissed her as though we had forever. Juma felt warm and tasted like summertime. Her small sighs as I took my time exploring her mouth pulsed through me and became a beat deep in my blood, my own jazz song called “Love.” She tangled her hands in my hair and wrapped her legs around me and we kissed a kiss of laughter and death and so many tomorrows.

  “Dutch,” she gasped as my lips traced down her throat, my tongue licked along her clavicle and teased her nipples, “what are you doing to me?” Her hand held her breast as I sucked and she cried out for more and she wanted everything faster, but I wanted time. Lots of it. And I wanted it to move slow.

  I took her hands in each of mine and pressed them into the bed and our eyes locked. “I’m fucking you, Juma, every goddamned inch of you,” I stated, and she opened her thighs and her scent curled around me so intense, I could think of nothing but eating her pussy, my tongue inside her, the sweet of her desire all over my mouth, and I had to catch myself before I lay waste to all my plans of going slow and taking my time and instead bent low and lapped at her swollen lips and rock-hard clit.

  “Dutch,” she closed her eyes and moaned, and I dipped down and licked her tongue and she licked me back. I kissed her hard and demanding because otherwise I was going to fuck her fast and right there, and that wasn’t happening. Not this time.

  I pulled away from her mouth and bit her tit and got her attention.

  “And when I really start fucking you, Juma,” I said as I pressed her hands tighter, “when my dick is deep inside your pussy, even that is going to be long and slow. That’s what I’m doing to you, beautiful.” I bit her other tit, then sucked it hard and stiff before I began moving down her body, my lips finding all my favorite pools of freckles, her body becoming mine all over again.

  She was lost in a world of touch and heat and I loved doing that to her, I loved listening to her moan as my hands cupped her hips and my lips kissed her thighs open wider and I breathed hot on her panties. She cried out and lifted herself off the bed so her pussy was close to my lips, on my lips, letting me know she wanted something from me badly.

  “What do you want, baby?” I asked, teasing her, my lips moving over the wet silk that separated my warm lips from her wet ones.

  “Ohhhh,” she gasped as I licked her through the soaked material and my hands found her ass. “Dutch.”

  I blew on her panties and licked again. “Yes, baby.” I slid her panties to the side and all of her was swollen and pink.

  “Please”—she moved my hands off her ass and guided them back to her hips—“take them off,” and I obliged, sliding the slip of material over her beautiful hips, down her legs, and tossed on the floor. I moved between her thighs and allowed myself a second to revel in the beauty of her pussy, wet and engorged and begging for my tongue all over it. And I wanted to kiss her but I also wanted to smell her, I wanted her scent all over me, imprinted on my skin. I dipped my nose close to her pussy and breathed deep, relearned her scent, let it soak into me again. My dick throbbed against the bed, demanding to be buried deep inside her, surrounded by that scent and all her slick heat.

  Instead.

  I pressed my lips to the seam of hers, then pulled away and tasted her on me, her juice a nectar of the gods. And I wanted all of it. I wanted to suck it down, swallow all her desire, but this wasn’t about me, it was about her, so I calmed and collected myself. Then real slow-like, pressed another kiss to her lips and listened while she breathed deep and heavy and all of it beat right into my dick.

  “Your pussy,” I said, and kissed her again, lower, my lips on hers, nothing more, “is goddamned beautiful,” and watched as she touched herself, her fingers soft against her clit, wet with her juice and holy fuck she was the most wicked sensual gift I could nev
er have dreamed in my wildest fantasies. I moved close, watched her touch herself until I couldn’t take it a second longer, and sucked her finger into my mouth, getting lost in the taste of her pussy on her.

  Juma sat up on her elbow and watched me suck on her finger, her eyes heavy-lidded with craving and want and when she pulled on her finger, I let her go because I knew what she was going to do and I wanted her to do it because I wanted to watch us watch each other get her off. Her fingers went right back to her clit, circling slow and soft as she spread her thighs and never once took her eyes off me. I glanced down to watch, then back at her, before I dipped down and followed her finger with my tongue.

  She bucked at my touch and I backed away, then dipped down again because she tasted like heaven and I needed more of her in my mouth, on my tongue. I followed her finger, soft just the way she liked, and real fucking slow, then I sucked her back into my mouth, released her, and sucked her clit.

  She fisted the sheets and my hair and begged me to kiss her soft, so I flicked her clit with my tongue and then just as she asked, I kissed her.

  Soft.

  Barely there.

  My lips pressed up and down the line of her pussy, and here and there, my tongue slid inside and all of her was wet and hot and so turned on.

  “Duuuuuuutch,” she sighed as I spread her lips with one hand and held her thigh open with the other and lapped at her pussy, the flat of my tongue pressed against her clit then dipped inside her, fucking her slow, eating her out as though she were my last meal and I was going to savor every second. Her legs started to shake and I pulled away.

  “Juma,” I growled low and kissed her clit. “Do not come.”

  I gave her a second to settle and collect herself and calm, then I blew on her pussy and licked her and started working her again, this time not so soft and not so slow. She spread her thighs wide and she was wet and swollen and her clit was huge, rock hard, and demanding my tongue and my lips. I sucked her hard and she rose off the bed and I wrapped my arms around her thighs and held her to me, merciless with my mouth as she swore she was going to come. Her legs shook and her pussy dripped and all of her became tight and focused and on the brink of something explosive