Standing in the Shadows

by Shannon McKenna

  Violent spasms of pleasure jerked and shuddered through her.

  She didn’t open her eyes for a long time afterwards. It was the only privacy she could maintain, with her body so penetrated, his eyes so intent upon her face. He waited patiently, curved over her body.

  The ripples widened, spread, softened to her chest, her throat, her eyes, and suddenly she was weeping, a soothing rush like a summer rainstorm. The enigma had been solved, but the solving of it had uncovered an even bigger mystery, one that mere love games could not resolve. She draped her arms around his neck, pulling his face to hers. “That’s enough of that,” she whispered. “Be gentle with me now.”

  He stiffened, and hid his face against her neck. “Oh, no,” he muttered. “Erin, I thought this was what you wanted. I thought—”

  “I did. I did want it,” she reassured him. She grabbed a hank of his hair and pulled him up so she could pet the anxious furrow between his brows with her fingertip. “And you gave it to me. And now I want something different, that’s all. No big deal. Just ease off.”

  “Did I hurt you? Do you want me to stop?”

  She kissed him. “Would you relax? There is no hidden message here. No code to decipher. I do not want to stop. Read my lips, OK?”

  He jerked his head away, but she wound the hair around her fingers, trapping him. “You are so fucking complicated,” he snapped.

  She sighed. “Just keep making love to me. Gently. And stop being ridiculous and anxious. What’s complicated about that?”

  He pried her fingers out of his hair and pressed his face against her neck, burrowing closer. “I just want to please you.”

  She was moved by the ragged tremor in his voice. “Oh, but you do,” she soothed him. “Didn’t you feel what happened? What you did to me? It was intense, but it worked. Just like you knew that it would.”

  “I thought I went too far,” he admitted. “With that stupid lord and master crap. I thought I’d screwed up.”

  “No. You didn’t. I trust you, Connor.” Her words softened to a senseless croon as she covered his hot face with kisses. She moved beneath him, caressing his shaft with every delicate, clinging muscle inside her sheath. It was a lazy, licking, tender kiss between their sexes. Their lips joined to match it, hungry for sweet reassurance.

  Their power games had transformed into something infinitely more beautiful and treacherous. His dominating energy was rendered down to desperate, shaking need. Now she was the strong one who clasped and held, with the power to give or to withhold. But there was no question of withholding. He was inside her mind, he was everywhere. Her heart glowed for him. Every part of her was liquid and soft, merging with him, surging and heaving like the sea.

  Much later, he murmured and lifted himself off her body, and stumbled away into the dark to dispose of the condom. She didn’t have the strength to turn her head and tell him where she kept the trash basket. He lifted the quilt, slid into bed again, rolling her on top of him.

  “I’ll squish you,” she protested, without much force.

  “Nah. This is another one of my classic Erin fantasies. Sleeping with your naked body on top of me. Your hair draped all over me, your hand against my chest, your breath mixing with mine. Your skin…”

  The rest of his whispered words blended into her dreams like a swirl of melting honey.

  Kurt Novak and Georg Luksch were not worth this pain and humiliation. They had used him, and thrown him away. He could feel it.

  The police flung Martin into the holding cell, and the gate clanged shut. He fell heavily to his knees, retching.

  Just his luck, that he should get rough, brutal types for his interrogation, but he had been prepared. He had been very strong. He had told the police exactly what his employers had ordered him to say. He had made the police torture it out of him, as instructed. He had held back as long as he could before finally gasping out where he had last seen Novak and Luksch, and when. He had been desperate, very convincing.

  Then he had repeated the same story, no matter how hard they hit him. He had been strong, but there was no one to bear witness to his loyalty. Novak and Luksch would never know or care how brave he had been for them. No one would ever know. He was sure of this.

  He was disposable, and they had thrown him away.

  His bosses had told him that if he did this for them, that his parents and his uncle would be spared, and that two million euro would be transferred to a private numbered account for him in a bank in Zurich upon his release. His very rapid release. We own the judges, they had told him. It will be arranged quickly, more quickly than the last time. We need you, Martin. That was why we arranged your escape with Luksch and Novak in America. Only you are strong enough for this task. Do not fear. Be strong, Martin. You will be rewarded.

  Rewarded. He laughed, but the pain of his cracked ribs stopped him. He huddled in the fetal position on the frigid concrete and wiggled his teeth, one by one. He would lose some of them. The left front, and the incisor. His mouth was full of blood. His tongue ran over the smooth capsule they had soldered to a filling in his back molar.

  A microchip, they had told him. So that we can always find you, always rescue you. Just a precaution. It will do you no harm. It is for your protection, Martin. Trust us.

  He suppressed another laugh, wiggling the loose molar with his tongue. Two million euro could replace lost teeth, he told himself. Two million euro could make up for a great many things.

  But not all, something whispered. Six months in an American prison, and now this. He was shrinking, curled up on a floor that smelled of urine and vomit. Smaller and smaller until he was the size of a child’s doll, with tiny balls like shriveled raisins.

  Too small to be seen by the bank personnel in Zurich.

  He pressed his tongue against the smooth capsule and wondered if they could listen to him through it, if there could be a microphone so small. He started, hysterically, to laugh again, even though every jolt of his diaphragm hurt like knives stabbing.

  “Fuck you,” he muttered, just in case they could hear him. And then, for good measure. “Fuck you both. Fuck Kurt Novak. Fuck Georg Luksch. Fuck your mothers, your grandmothers. Fuck you all.”

  It happened immediately, as if in answer to his words. A pop inside his mouth, a burning. A sharp, bitter taste, and his heart froze in his chest. Arrested, in midbeat.

  The pain was huge, but he felt no surprise. He understood a million things in that timeless moment that his heart ceased to beat. The choices that had led him to this stinking concrete floor. The boredom and greed and restless anger that had gotten him mixed up with that murderous scum. The many cruel things that he had done with them, for them. It raced through his mind, together with all the choices that he could have made, and had not.

  He could have married Sophie, joined his uncle’s wine business. Sunday mornings strolling in the village square, he with their young son on his shoulders, she with the baby carriage, their infant daughter asleep beneath her pink blanket. A splendid lunch, and then lazy afternoon sex with his wife while the children napped. A game of cards at the club, a beer with the friends watching soccer on TV Weddings, baptisms, funerals.

  The ordinary seasons of a blameless life.

  He watched it spin by, until real time caught up with him. The iron fist closed, and crushed his heart out of existence, and what could have been and what truly was were both extinguished.

  Chapter

  14

  She was still on top of him when she woke up. Dawn had lightened the dingy brick wall outside the window, turning it a charcoal gray. She glanced up at Connor’s face. He was gazing at her with his usual intensity, but it no longer flustered her. She liked it now.

  She shifted on top of him, murmuring with pleasure. He was so solid and warm. Her thigh was flung across his, and his erect penis pressed against her, as hot as a brand. She poised herself over him so that her hair fell around them in a shadowy curtain, and touched his lips with hers. His mouth opened at
her urging. Their tongues touched, a delicate, questing flick that melded into a deliciously sensuous kiss. It brought her body to tingling wakefulness.

  She expected him to spring to action, but he just lay beneath her, rigid and trembling. She lifted her head. “Connor. Don’t you want to…?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Like you have to ask.”

  She dropped a kiss on his jaw. “Then why don’t you?”

  “You gave me a hard time last night. About pushing you around.”

  She was indignant. “I never said—”

  “I’m sick of it. I’m just going to lie here and see what happens. If you want something, take it. If you need something from me, ask for it.”

  He folded his arms back behind his head, and waited.

  She was disconcerted, but not for long. She didn’t need instructions. She had ideas coming at her by the truckload. If he wanted to be a love slave, he’d come to the right place.

  She flung back the quilt and rose up onto her knees. This was going to be fun. She leaned over and kissed him, thrusting her tongue aggressively into his mouth, the way he so often did to her. He murmured in surprise, and his body shook.

  “Give me your hands.” The ring of command in her voice was so unfamiliar, she barely recognized it as her own.

  He unfolded his arms. She seized his hands and pressed them against her breasts. “Touch me,” she said huskily. “Lightly. With your fingertips. Like butterfly wings.”

  He obeyed her. His eyes were bright with fascination, and his gentle fingers traced lines over the curves of her breasts. She flung her head back and danced above him, letting pleasure lead her. His breath got harsher, his erection harder. She leaned over so that her breasts dangled in his face. “Suck on my nipples,” she commanded.

  He writhed beneath her and gripped her waist, murmuring in a pleading voice. He covered her breasts with his hot mouth. She shook with excitement. The tremors were shaking her apart.

  She pulled away, panting and flushed. They stared at each other, their eyes bright with discovery.

  “Wow,” he whispered. “Oh, my queen. What is your royal will?”

  She shimmied down his body until she straddled his thighs, and tormented him with her fingertips, exploring every line and curve. He squeezed his eyes shut and moaned when she took his penis in her hands. She swirled her hand around the head, so smooth and bursting with pent-up need. She poised herself above him, and slid the blunt tip of him up and down her vulva. She wiggled, shifted, seeking the right angle, and forced herself down, enveloping him with a shuddering sigh. He was so amazingly thick, as hard as a hot club throbbing inside her.

  “God,” he muttered. “Please. Erin.”

  She rose up again, sank deeper. The small, quivering muscles inside her sheath clenched him with loving, jealous tightness, caressing the whole, delicious length of him.

  “I’m not wearing a condom,” he told her. “If you haven’t noticed.”

  She smiled. “So don’t come inside me. You have such excellent self-control. I’ve seen it in action, so you can’t pretend you don’t. So use it, Connor. Use it…in my service.”

  She rose up, and took him in again, a hot, slow glide of pleasure.

  He panted beneath her. “You know this is stupid,” he said. “We’ve got them, so there’s no goddamn excuse for not using them.”

  She kissed his chest. “Something about you makes me want to play with fire. What an awful bitch I am. Torturing you like this.”

  He made a sharp, angry sound. “You’ve been acting strange ever since we got back to town. I’m not saying it doesn’t turn me on, but it’s starting to really piss me off.”

  “Oh, no. I’m just terrified.” She rocked against him, rising up and sinking slowly back down with a sigh of bliss. “I’m tired of doing the smart thing and being agreeable and sensible and proper. I’ve been a good girl all my life, and I’ve only just realized that it doesn’t do a damn bit of good. You just get slammed anyway. So why bother? What is the point of all that stupid effort? You just end up feeling like a fool.”

  He shook his head and opened his mouth. She pressed her finger against his lips. “Ever since I seduced you, I don’t want to be a good girl anymore. I want to do naughty things. Get a tattoo. Show my cleavage. Pay my rent late. Drink tequila shots, dance on the tabletops. Blow my paycheck on pretty shoes. Rob a bank wearing a leather mini-skirt.”

  “Oh, God, Erin—”

  “I want to become a cautionary tale for young women. Don’t do what Erin did, girls! It’s the path to doom! And you know what else I want? I want this. With you. Right now. Give me your hands again.”

  He offered them, a gesture of surrender, and she placed them gently at the curve of her hips. “Hold me,” she said. “Move under me, Connor. Make me come.”

  His fingers bit into her waist, and his hips bucked as he seized control of the rhythm. All she could do was gasp and hang on for the ride, sometimes deep and pounding, sometimes a sensual dance that slid over and over that glowing ache of need inside her that was wired to everything that mattered, her eyes and throat, her spine, her nipples, her heart, until ripples of bliss overflowed and unraveled her.

  He withdrew, panting, and she lost her balance and slid off the bed. He caught her arms, but her legs tumbled off until her knees hit Aunt Millie’s braided rag rug. He sat up and pulled her onto her knees.

  She knelt between his spread thighs, his penis jutting in her face, hot with the scent of her own pleasure. He wound his hands into her hair, staring into her eyes. “Make me come, Erin,” he said.

  She took him deep into her mouth without hesitation, gripping him eagerly with both hands and mouth. She followed the cues his body gave her: his sobbing pants, his fingers tightening in her hair, the slick, bursting heat of his penis in her mouth, the salty drops against her tongue. She drew him in as deep as she could, sliding and suckling.

  He was primed to explode. In just a few long, luxurious strokes he erupted into her mouth in hot, pulsing spasms.

  She hid her face against his scarred thigh. He sagged over her, trembling, and slowly slid off the bed to join her on the floor. He pulled her into his arms and rested his head on her shoulder.

  Connor lifted his head a few minutes later. “You feeling any mellower?” he asked. “You work out any of those bad girl demons?”

  “Not really,” she murmured. “I still feel pretty naughty.”

  “Oh, God. I’m a dead man.”

  His tone was light, but dread still chilled her at his careless words. “Don’t say that!”

  His eyes were puzzled. “Huh?”

  “It’s bad luck. Don’t ever say that again. Please. Ever.”

  He started to speak, stopped himself, and gave her a brief, crooked smile. He pulled her into his arms again. “OK,” he said gently. “Sorry.”

  She squeezed him tightly, until her arms shook with the strain.

  “Let’s get one thing clear,” he said, stroking her back tenderly. “When you go to drink your tequila shots and dance on tabletops in your leather mini-skirt, I get to come along. With my gun.”

  She giggled against his chest. “Oh, please.”

  “I mean it,” he said sternly. “No banks, though. There I draw the line. I’m sworn to uphold law and order and all that garbage.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “One jailbird in the family is enough.”

  Connor went rigid in her arms. The air in the room was suddenly chilly against her damp skin.

  Connor dropped his arms. Erin scrambled to her feet. “I’ll, um, just jump in the shower,” she babbled. “I’ll be right out.”

  She scurried into the bathroom. The door slammed.

  Connor wandered around the room, trying to breathe away the tension in his gut. He stared at the corkboard over her desk. Photos and postcards were push-pinned all over it. Erin and Ed on a ski trip, squinting and sunburned. His arm was flung over her shoulder. They were laughing.

  He realized
that he was rubbing his scarred thigh, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw throbbed.

  The phone rang. He decided not to touch it. She had a machine. If it was Cindy, he would pick up. Otherwise, it would be suicide to touch the thing.

  The shower stopped running just as the machine clicked on. The bathroom door burst open as a woman’s bouncy, fake cheerful voice began to speak.

  “Hi, Erin, this is Kelly, from Keystroke Temps. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you—”

  Erin burst out in a cloud of steam, naked, her hair dripping.

  “—had some complaints about you from Winger, Drexler & Lowe, about your attitude, and your decision to be unavailable for work this morning was just the last straw for them. So the office manager told me to tell you just not to come in tomorrow. And, uh…Keystroke Temps is making the same decision. I’m really sorry, Erin, but the decision is definitive and final, and if you mail in your timesheet, we’ll mail your last check to you, so there’ll be no need for you to come in and—”

  Erin lunged for the phone. “Kelly? It’s me—yes, I know, but I came back early—but that’s ridiculous! I was a perfect employee! My attitude was excellent! I came in early, I worked late, I did ten times as much work as—that’s crazy! They can’t possibly—”

  She listened for another moment, and laughed bitterly. “Kelly, you know, I don’t envy you having to tell me this. But let me give you a tip for the future. Don’t tell someone to have a nice day after giving them news like that. Trust me, it’s the wrong thing to say.”

  She slammed the phone down and whirled on him, naked and dripping and stupendously beautiful in her towering rage.

  “That stupid cow,” she snarled. “Have a nice day! As if!”

  He backed away. “Uh, Erin?”

  She advanced on him. “What could they possibly have complained about? I reorganized their database! I worked out all the bugs in their financial program! I rewrote every single document those idiots ever dictated and turned it into real English! I even got coffee for those bastards, and all for thirteen lousy dollars an hour!”