Standing in the Shadows

by Shannon McKenna

  Until now, a voice in her head whispered. She’d offered herself up on a silver platter. Here she was, naked and bent over for his pleasure.

  He felt the fear and shame that clutched her, and stopped. He was shoved so deep inside her, she felt him pressing against her womb.

  “Had enough, Erin? Want the mask back?”

  “No, I don’t want masks! That’s not what I want at all, Connor—”

  “Then what the fuck do you want?” he panted.

  I want you to love me. She stopped the words just in time. “I want to turn around,” she said. “I need to see your face. Your eyes.”

  He pulled out and spun her around, pushing her back against the wall. He wasted no time in scooping her leg up to dangle it over his arm.

  He drove inside her once again. Water pounded, steam billowed. Erin gasped for breath and hung onto his shoulders, just as she hung onto the piercing comprehension that had come to her when she had held his head at her breast. The pang of grief and empathy for a bereft, motherless little boy. The longing she ached to soothe.

  That was the shining truth beneath all this push and shove. She was in love with him. She wanted all of him, every face, every side: the furious demon lover, the grieving child, the tender seducer, the gallant protector. She loved them all, and if surrendering could prove that to him, then surrender she would. She had no choice anyway; he ravished her senses, he flooded her body with wild heat. She melted around him in an endless, shivering climax that embraced everything he was: his body, his passion, his pain, his anger. She wanted it all.

  He wrenched himself out of her with a shout, seizing her hand and wrapping her fingers around his shaft. He erupted. Jets of hot semen welled up and trickled over their interlocked fingers.

  They sagged to their knees together in the ankle-deep water. After three tries, Connor finally managed to raise his arm high enough to push down the faucet knob. Silence, and then the hollow drip of the shower. They clung to each other, trembling.

  Connor was the first to raise his head. He tried to smooth back the soaked hair that clung to her face. “Erin—”

  “No,” she said.

  He frowned. “No, what?”

  “No, you didn’t hurt me, so stop worrying. It was fabulous.”

  He looked mystified. “How did you know what I was going to say?”

  “Must’ve learned the mind-reading trick from you,” she said, nuzzling his throat. “You made me angry, but you didn’t hurt me. You couldn’t. You don’t have it in you. You’re too sweet.”

  He stared down at her, incredulous. “After what just happened here, you still think I’m sweet?”

  She kissed the scar on his shoulder. “Oh, yes. You’re lots of things, Connor McCloud. And one of them is very, very sweet.”

  Connor wiped the water off his face and reached for her. “You’re nuts, Erin. You trust me more than I trust myself.”

  “It’s scary to lose control,” she murmured.

  His arms tightened around her. “Tell me about it.”

  He reached for the shower gel and pulled her up onto her knees, sliding his soapy hand between her legs. She gasped and clutched his shoulders. She wasn’t used to being touched at all, let alone this intimately, and his hands made free with her body, laving and rinsing, his fingers sliding tenderly into the folds of her sex. As if to tell her that she was all his, to touch and handle as he pleased.

  Two could play that game. She soaped her hand and reached for his penis. He caught her wrist and stopped her.

  “No more of your sex goddess tricks,” he growled. “I have to chill out now. It’s a physiological necessity.”

  “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “You’re safe, at least for a little while. I need to rest, too.”

  The haunted look in his eyes gave way to a slow, appreciative smile. The water swirled around them, until the drain swallowed all the water. They were tangled together in an empty tub.

  “I don’t know if I can move,” she confessed. “I’m limp.”

  He hauled himself up until he sat on the edge of the tub. She barely caught the tightening on his face as he rubbed his scarred leg.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked hesitantly.

  He shrugged. “It worked better before it got smashed to pieces. I’m just grateful that I can still walk on it.”

  She brushed her hand down the length of the series of surgical scars. She leaned forward, and tenderly kissed every one of them.

  He murmured incoherently, and hid his face against her wet hair.

  They stayed that way until Erin started shivering. He helped her to her feet, and they toweled each other off in a shy silence.

  The room looked as if a hurricane had struck; blankets on one side of the bed, coverlet on the other, pillows on the floor, sheets torn half off the mattress. Erin’s clothes were scattered everywhere. She started making the bed. Connor put his hand on her arm.

  “Leave it.” He picked up the blankets and pillows and tossed them carelessly onto the ravaged bed. “We’ll just sleep on the other one.”

  It was hard for her to leave it messy, but the nagging, neatnik voice in her mind that usually ruled the roost was muted and faraway. She had bigger things to occupy her mind. An unmade bed was the least of her concerns. Her clothes were another matter, though. She repacked them all, and when she looked up, Connor was stretched out beneath the covers, watching her.

  She glanced down at herself. Stark naked in front of him, and she wasn’t self-conscious at all. She was transformed.

  “You’re so beautiful, Erin,” he said softly. “You blow my mind.”

  Self-consciousness rushed back in a big, sweeping whoosh.

  She let her tangled hair fall forward over her hot face as she shoved her toiletries case into the space allotted for it. That comment merited a graceful acknowledgment, if her throat would only stop shaking long enough to make one. “Thanks,” she whispered.

  He turned the covers down on her side of the bed and beckoned to her, baring all the rippling, lean muscles of his gorgeous torso in the process. “Come to bed with me?”

  “In a minute. I have to try and get in touch with Cindy. Even though she probably won’t talk to me.”

  “What’s with Cindy? She OK?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Erin dug her organizer out of her purse and curled up in the space Connor made for her. She tried the cell phone number first. It rang and rang. Then she tried Cindy’s group house. Caitlin, one of Cindy’s roommates, picked up. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Caitlin, this is Erin, Cindy’s sister. Is she there?”

  “Uh, no. I haven’t seen her in a while. But when she gets back, I’ll sure tell her you called, OK?”

  “Thanks,” Erin said. “Ah, Caitlin, this guy she’s seeing, this Billy. Do you know where she met him? Or anything about him at all?”

  There was an awkward pause. “Uh…I’m afraid I don’t. I’ve only met him a couple times,” Caitlin said. “But he seems real nice to me.”

  “OK. Thanks. “Bye, Caitlin.” She hung up. The cold lump of anxiety in her belly was back.

  “What’s up with Cindy, Erin?” Connor’s voice had taken on a hard, steely note that she had come to recognize.

  She started working the comb through her tangled hair, and the task calmed down her trembling fingers. “She’s left college during exam week. She’s lost her scholarship. And now she’s staying down in the city, God knows where, with a guy named Billy who drives a Jaguar and gives her expensive gifts. I called her new cell phone number yesterday. She told me that college was a stupid waste of time, and that her financial problems were over. She’d found new ways to make money.”

  He sat up, scowling. “Ouch.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Erin said fervently.

  “Did she sound like she was high?”

  She gulped. “Couldn’t say. I don’t have much experience with that. She sounded giggly and euphoric, but Cindy’s always been giggly. And I think she’
s in love. That could account for the euphoria.”

  “We need to find out more about this guy Billy.”

  His casual use of the word “we” made her chest ache with gratitude. Not that anyone could help, but at least he cared. She scooted behind him and started combing his hair. “There’s nothing we can do until she answers her phone and tells me more,” she said.

  Connor winced when she hit a tangle. “Erin, isn’t once a night enough for this combing business? You’ll comb me bald.”

  “You can’t go to sleep with your hair tangled like that,” she fussed. She worked through it till every lock was slicked back from his face. “Her roommates probably think they’re protecting Romeo and Juliet by not telling me anything,” she said. “Fluff-brained idiots.”

  He turned around, grinning. “There’s more than one way to get information,” he said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  Connor groped in the pocket of his coat for his cell phone and dialed Sean’s number as he slid back into bed, into close contact with Erin’s slender, curvy body. Good thing Sean’s latest bed toy had mutated into a gigantic bloodsucking insect. Otherwise the chances of getting Sean at this hour would have been next to zilch. Sean’s evenings almost always ended up in some woman’s bed or other.

  “What is it?” Sean’s voice sounded breathless and annoyed.

  “Jesus, Sean, have you already found a new girlfriend?”

  “None of your goddamn business, but if you must know, I’m at the dojo. I just finished teaching my kickboxing class for Davy. What’s up? You in trouble yet?”

  “Not yet, but I’ve got a job for you. Urgent. Detective type stuff.”

  Sean groaned. “Oh, God. You’re not unloading one of Davy’s duller ’n dirt watching-the-paint-peel stakeout gigs on me, are you?”

  “Nah. I know the exact limits of your attention span. This one’s right up your alley. It involves visiting a house full of fresh, juicy, college chicks and prying information out of them.”

  There was a thoughtful pause. “I’m listening,” Sean said.

  “I thought that might grab you.” Connor related the facts to Sean with blunt concision. “We need to know who this fuckhead with the Jaguar is, and where he’s been. And we need to know it now.”

  “Got it. One thing. The chicks. Are they genuinely cute? Or are you shitting me?”

  Connor looked at Erin. “Cindy’s roommates. Are they cute? Sean wants to know.”

  Erin opened and closed her mouth, bewildered. “Uh, I…well, I never thought to…uh—”

  “Drop-dead gorgeous, every last one of them,” Connor said into the phone. “There’s a platinum blonde, and a redhead, and a black chick, and an Asian—”

  “Oh, piss off,” Sean muttered. “What’s the address?”

  “Address?” Connor gestured for her organizer, and Erin passed it to him. He read off the address to his brother. “Get on it quick, Sean. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  “You’ve got bad feelings about everything,” Sean grumbled. “I’m on it, don’t worry. First thing tomorrow.”

  Connor hung up. “If anybody can charm information out of a houseful of females, Sean can,” he told her. “He’s a goddamn Adonis. It’s cruel to sic him on them during finals weeks, but hey, this is war.”

  “Doesn’t your brother have a job? How is he free on a Monday?”

  “Sean’s a free agent. Both of my brothers work for themselves. Our upbringing wasn’t conducive to fitting easily into hierarchies.”

  “You fit in, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “I thought I did.” Her question made him feel bleak. “I guess I wasn’t cut out for a real job any more than my brothers are.”

  “One more thing,” she said, frowning. “You say your brother Sean is so cute. Is he as good-looking as you?”

  He laughed at her. “Hah. Even at my best, Sean leaves me in the dust. And Davy, too, in a different way. Davy’s got forty pounds of solid muscle on me. But Sean’s the pinup loverboy of the three of us.”

  She shook her head. “I cannot believe that,” she said. “He cannot be cuter than you. It’s physically impossible.”

  Damn. He was going to blush again. The soft look in her eyes made him want to roll around on the bed, as blissed out as a dog whose belly was being rubbed. “Come back to bed,” he pleaded.

  She crawled under the blankets he held up and nestled close to him. “Thank you for calling your brother,” she said gravely. “I feel better already. Just because somebody’s doing something.”

  He fitted her tightly against him. “It’s nothing.”

  “Not to me.” She kissed his chest. “My hero.”

  He stiffened against her. “Oh, God. Not you, too.”

  She pulled away from him. “What do you mean, not me, too?”

  “My brothers, the Cave. And now you. I can’t outrun it.”

  She sat up, and shook her head, bewildered. “Outrun what?”

  “The hero crack,” he snapped.

  Her eyes were large and hurt. “It wasn’t a crack. I didn’t mean to offend you. I actually meant it as a compliment.”

  He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling, ashamed of himself. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m not offended. Just self-conscious.”

  She kissed his chest. Her soft lips against his skin, her delicious warm weight made his body stir…and then throb.

  “Well, whatever,” she said briskly. “In any case, thank you. You’re a sweetheart, and I appreciate your concern for my little sister.”

  “I care about Cindy, too,” he said. “She’s always been my pal.”

  “I know,” she said. “I used to be so jealous that you joked around with her, but never with me.”

  He gaped at her. “Give me a break. Cindy was just a scrawny kid. But you? The teen dream with the sexy, pinup-girl body? Like I was going to tickle you or arm-wrestle you or so much as touch you with a ten-foot pole in front of your dad. I don’t have a goddamn death wish.”

  “Oh, please,” she murmured. “Don’t exaggerate.”

  “Exaggerate, my ass,” he muttered. “Besides, your mom was on to me from the start.”

  “What do you mean? On to what?”

  “On to the fact that I liked you,” he said. “She always hated my guts, and I’m pretty sure that’s why.”

  “Mom did not hate you!” Erin protested. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Sure. I was the only one of your dad’s colleagues who called her Mrs. Riggs. In nine years, she never invited me to call her Barbara.”

  “Oh. Well. Mom’s kind of…formal sometimes,” Erin faltered.

  Connor shot her a dubious glance. “Jesse called her Barb.”

  “Jesse was different,” she said lamely.

  “Yeah. Jesse never got busted staring at your tits.” Connor pulled her closer and cupped her breast tenderly. Her nipple tightened. “I didn’t blame her one bit. I’d feel the exact same way if I caught a man looking at my innocent young daughter the way I was looking at you.”

  “How…how were you looking at me?” she asked breathlessly.

  He reached across her and flipped off the bedside lamp. “Like I wanted to throw you down onto the nearest bed and do…this.”

  He rolled on top of her and kissed her.

  This was no good-night kiss. Connor’s tongue deep thrust into her mouth. He nudged her legs apart and settled himself between them. Their dynamic had shifted since that wild scene in the shower. They had crossed over an invisible line, and there was no going back.

  He reached between her thighs, bathing his fingers in the liquid pooled in her secret depths with a murmur of discovery. “Jesus,” he muttered. “You’re red-hot, Erin. You’re ready for me right now.” He guided his thick shaft to her tender opening.

  She flinched as he nudged and prodded his way in and gripped his arms for ballast. “I thought you had to rest,” she said breathlessly. “I thought it was a physiological necessity.”

  �
��It was,” he said. “I rested.”

  He loomed over her in the darkness, overwhelming her. He’d used her body so hard, but with such terrifying skill. She would never have dreamed that anything so rough could give her pleasure. She was the one who had seduced him, she reminded herself. She had torn their barriers down, and there was no restoring them now.

  “Is that all the rest you need?” she whispered.

  “I want more of you, Erin. I want to be inside you. I’m not going to come this time, though.”

  She was startled. “You don’t have to? I thought—”

  “Nah.” He grazed her throat delicately with his teeth. “Not this time. I can make it back off if I stop and concentrate. The next time I come, I want to be shoved inside you as deep as I can get. For that, we need a condom.” He withdrew, and thrust heavily back in.

  “Oh,” she gasped.

  “But you’re a girl. You don’t have to economize on your orgasms,” he said. “No spending limits. An invitation to excess.” His hips pulsed against her, pressing and circling against her every sensitive point.

  “Ah…” Her fingernails dug into the hard muscles of his shoulders. “I…um…”

  “I want to feel you come again. I love it when you clench up around me and explode. I want to feast on your pleasure. Will you give me that?” He did something wickedly marvelous, a licking caress up and down her labia with the head of his penis. “Pretty please.”

  Her moan became a gasp when he thrust again. “But you—”

  “One thing to consider, though. If I don’t come, that means there’s no built-in stopping point. I could fuck you all night long. Literally.” He slid inside her a couple of teasing inches, then out, swirling around her clitoris. “So it’s up to you to say when you’ve had enough. Because I’m never going to want to stop. Get that? My job, to make you come. Your job, to tell me when we’re done. And don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I’m tough. That clear?”

  He waited for her signal. She hesitated, sensing yet another point of no return. One out of so many. She hardly noticed them anymore.