by S. R. Jones
I’d never tasted anything like it. We’d been drinking sodas and her lips tasted of the sugar. They were cool and inviting. Soft and oh-so-sensual to kiss.
In all my years on the Earth, I’d never felt a connection so strong. It was as if I didn’t know where I ended and she began, and I wanted nothing more than to take it further. So instead, I cut the kiss off. I pulled away, gave her a small smile, and without looking back got into my car and drove away like the utter dickhead I am.
Now, I’m sitting on my boat, raging at myself. I hadn’t left her, of course. I needed to keep my eyes on her, so I’d driven some way but then pulled in and watched what she did. For the longest time she simply stood by her car, then she’d scooped Boo up and hugged him to her. Holding him tight, she’d kissed his neck a few times before getting into her car. She drove out of the city, trailed by me, and back to the marina. When she was safely on the boat, I parked, and headed to my own abode.
Now, I’m drinking whisky, which I never do, and telling myself that going to her is the worst idea ever, despite it being all I want to do.
It’s ten in the evening and I’ve been nursing this drink for the longest time, not wanting to get messy, but needing something to take the edge off. I think Abi is in bed. I heard her brush her teeth, flush the loo, run some water as I presumed she showered or washed, and then heard her clamber about and the sounds of her settling.
I picture her, all warm and cozy in her covers, and want to slip underneath them and be warm and cozy with her.
Shit, am I really thinking about cuddling with some woman? Fuck my life.
A moan sounds from the monitor, and I sit up, alert. Another one follows on its heels and I wonder if she’s having another erotic dream, but then a third one sounds out and it doesn’t seem like she’s having a good time, she sounds in pain. Or scared.
“No.”
The one word rings out, jolting me to full attention. “Nick, no.”
Fuck, she’s having a nightmare. I tell myself this is none of my business and to simply listen while she runs through some sort of horror show in her dreams. I tell myself this, but after five more minutes of her mumbles, groans and cries, I’m done.
I stand and head out onto the dock. If I walk toward her houseboat and stand on the pebbly beach by the windows at the back, I might be able to hear if she’s calmed down.
Then I see I’ll be able to hear it all as she’s left a window wide open. I stare at that dark opening into her space, my jaw ticking. Is she insane? I know the boat isn’t exactly Fort Knox, but leaving the window open is a crazy stupid move for a female alone on a houseboat on the very edge of the dock.
“No, please.”
The word please is drawn out, plaintive.
Shit.
I stride around onto the dock and haul up onto her deck. “Hey. Abi.” I knock on the glass doors.
No answer. I knock again and call her name out.
I hear a cry and then a bump followed by a mumbled, shit.
She appears moments later, looking so adorable it should be illegal. Hair mussed up, eyes wide, lips puffy from sleep, she pulls the door open frowning at me.
“I was sitting on the beach, watching the waves,” I indicate the beach like an idiot. “I heard you shouting out. Wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Bit of a nightmare.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.” I turn to go, then remembering the window, pivot back to her. “You really should close that window. I don’t want to scare you but you’re a woman alone and it’s not safe leaving it open.”
She gives me a grimace of a smile. “I know. I opened it today and I can’t shut the stupid thing.”
“Can I try?” I offer.
She considers me for a moment, then nods.
Chapter Eight
Abi
He walks into my space and he seems bigger in the low ceilinged, poky living area. His broad shoulders brush by me as he walks past, and he turns to give me a smile, but it’s his eyes that capture me.
He’s looking at me like he wants to devour me. I can see a hunger in their depths that should scare me, but it doesn’t. No one has looked at me in such a way for the longest time. No, scratch that, no one has looked at me like this, ever.
How can I be so attracted to a man I hardly know? I shouldn’t be. It’s not as if I make the best decisions in this area. I’m so messed up I chained myself to a complete freak. The very last thing I should do is let myself feel any sort of attraction. But I am. So much so I’m all giddy and shaky.
I try to compose myself and not look like a total idiot.
He strides over to the window and pushes it, but it doesn’t budge. Frowning at it, he tries again. Still, it doesn’t move. Damn thing, I opened it and now it won’t move either way.
This time he puts the flat of his palm against the lip of the window and slams his other hand into that palm and the window slams shut but he gives a soft grunt. When I look there’s blood streaming out of a cut on his hand.
“Shit.” He shakes his head at it and gives me a wry smile. “Guess I’ll need a plaster.”
“I’ve got a small first aid kit here, it comes with the boat,” I say. “I can clean the cut and dress it for you. That windowsill is dirty.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Come, take a seat while I go fetch it.” When I talk I’m hyper aware of myself, my tongue feels too big in my mouth, and I don’t like it. This self-consciousness is new. Strange and almost exotic.
I pad across the room and feel his gaze burning up my bare legs. I’m only wearing a t-shirt style nightdress and it stops a ways above my knees.
When I get into the bathroom, I take a moment to run the cold water tap and dab my overheated cheeks with splashes of cool water. I must be losing the plot. Surely it’s not normal to feel such an intense attraction to someone I don’t know at all? I should be angry with him for the weird way he cut our day off earlier, but I’m not. Something tells me he’s feeling the pull, too, and trying to avoid it, or limit it. The way he kissed me. I brush my finger against my lips. Then I shake my head and get a grip of myself before walking out of the small room.
Green first aid kit in my hand, I head back to him, and go sit by him, pulling a chair up and realizing I’ve ended up kind of between his open legs. My naked knees resting by his thighs. Crap.
He rests his hand on the table, cut side up and I force myself to focus. It’s fairly deep, and dirty, so I take out the antiseptic spray to wash and irrigate the wound. One incremental tightening of his mouth is the only indication he gives of any pain when I start to spray.
Next, I take out some cotton swabs and dab it dry. My fingers rest on is wrist as I do so, and I feel the strength of him even there.
He’s tense. Coiled.
Waiting.
I let my fingers linger. I glance at him and he’s watching me, eyes slightly narrowed, and it might be my imagination, but I think he’s breathing harder than before. I swallow, look away, and dab some more at the already dry wound.
“I think it’s dry.” His voice is gruffer than usual when he speaks.
“I’ll put some ointment on.” I take the antiseptic cream out and put a small dab onto my finger and then smear at the cut.
In this small, quiet space, with the water lapping softly outside all of this seems so intimate. This small, caring gesture feels like heady foreplay somehow in the confines of the room with the boat moving slightly with the water.
“I think a plaster will do it,” I say.
He smiles at me. It’s genuine and it warms his eyes. “You’d make a good nurse.”
“I used to want to be a nurse.”
“Not any longer?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” I say. “But my dream is to own a riding school where sick and disabled kids can come ride. When I was young the only time I felt okay was on the back of the horse.”
He’s staring at me with such an odd expression on his face. �
�So damn good,” he mumbles, and the words jolt me. What does he mean?
They are said with feeling, truthful intent, but they immediately take me back. To another man, one who used to torment me with the taunt goody-two-shoes. Who used to sneer at me, you’re so damned good, before making me be so very bad in all the ways I didn’t want.
My chest tightens as I fight to forget the way Nick made me feel. I remember him laughing in my face when he found out I’d been doing charity work on the days I was supposed to be at the spa, right before he punched me so hard in the gut I threw up and couldn’t eat for two days.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Liam’s hand lands on my arm, resting there, offering comfort and warmth.
I want to be in the here and now, to feel something other than the fear and hatred and disgust I’ve lived with for so long.
Worse, the disgust isn’t only at Nick, it’s at myself too for being treated in such a way. For the things I let him do to me. I want to wash that disgust off, but no amount of scrubbing in the shower works.
Liam’s hand on me, though, it’s burning the self-loathing away. Replacing it with flames of lust. Would it be so bad to feel only good things for once? To ride the high, and let my body receive some pleasure?
I don’t fool myself into thinking it will be a loving touch I’ll receive. This man doesn’t know me, never mind love me. But I think he wants me, and I want him.
I don’t need forever. In fact, I don’t want it. I need to find myself, learn to stand on my own two feet. It doesn’t mean I can’t have some passion though. And I think Liam might be a passionate lover.
Tentatively, unsure of myself, I place the palm of my hand on the center of his chest. I let it rest there, feeling his warmth through the cotton of his t-shirt.
His eyes darken as he lowers his lids to look at my hand on him.
“Abi,” he says, and it’s a warning.
“Kiss me. Like you did before.”
“Abi. We shouldn’t.”
“Why not? Are you married? Don’t find me attractive?”
He shakes his head.
“Why then?”
The conflict in his gaze deepens. I don’t understand why he is so anguished about us doing this. He’s on holiday, traveling around. We met. Clicked. Have an attraction. So far as I can see, there’s no reason for us not to act on the spark between us. It’s what I want. To be a normal young woman for once doing something reckless with a man who knows nothing about my past.
“I want this,” I insist. “I want you.”
It’s as if my words undo something in him, because he groans, and then he’s reaching for me, pulling me into him some more, the stool I’m sitting on scraping against the floor as I find myself almost in his lap.
His fist tangles in my hair, firm but not pulling at all, and he drags me into him, his mouth finding mine on another groan.
He tastes of whisky, and smells faintly of soap and something warm and inviting, some aftershave but not one of the fresh scents Nick favors, something altogether more sensual.
Our kiss deepens, and he takes control utterly of my mouth, dominating me but not in the twisted nasty way Nick did. No, Liam’s domination is welcome. A distraction. He kisses me so thoroughly I can’t think about anything else, and all thoughts of Nick flee.
My body responds to his kiss as if he’s poured gasoline on the furnace of my desire. My nipples harden under my thin cotton nightie and push against his chest, and where my thighs are pressed together my core throbs.
Our mouths are battling one another, needing so much more that both try to take what we want, and we moan into one another’s mouths as our teeth and tongues clash. It isn’t refined or pretty, it’s a dirty, wet, messy kiss and it is glorious.
I’m burning up, and I have to move on my stool, squirming a little to try and relieve the pressure building in me. I don’t think I can deal with this, with what I’ve started. It’s not that I am not turned on, because I am, but it's much more than that.
I want him on such a base level that it transcends the usual feelings around sex, and threatens to wreck me if I keep going on this course to disaster I’ve set in motion. Something about him, his quiet, steely control calls to me. The way he’s casual and laid back but underneath the veneer of civility there’s the way he almost eats up the air in any room he enters. The way his presence makes a space smaller.
Yep, he won’t be the casual fuck I keep telling myself he will. I expect he’ll burn his mark on me for a long time.
Yet I will keep going. My body is in the lead now, and there’s no turning back as far as she’s concerned. She’s a ravenous bitch in heat and she wants her man. I need Liam inside me. Crave him to fill all the empty spaces within me.
I don't care if he gives me enough foreplay right now.
I don't care if he touches me in the way that I like.
I don't even care if I get off during this encounter or not.
I want him inside me, it's as simple and as complicated as that.
I am chasing a connection.
Until this moment, my last few years have been spent receiving the touch of a man who only wanted to humiliate and degrade me.
Liam wants me with a fierceness that burns bright in its purity.
I sense he’s on the same page as me. I’m sure if I don’t take control, he’ll try to be a gentleman and slow things down. Give me the buildup he thinks I need. I don’t need it. There's no time or need for play and seduction in this room. Between us, here and now, all I want is him. In me.
It may be wrong of me to use him, but I want Liam to erase the past, and to take every sinful, sick, and twisted thing Nick did to me and burn it away. I know, of course, he can't, but it doesn't stop me from wanting it.
Liam is pulling my nightdress over my head, and with rough jerky movements he throws it to one side of the small space we occupy, where it lands on the floor. My nipples pucker in the cool air and his gaze lands on my breasts, as he brushes a rough thumb over one extended peak.
I jerk into the touch and he runs his other hand down my side, as if soothing me. My panties are wet, and I scent my own arousal. Wanting to see him, too, I wrestle with the buckle on his jeans. He stands, taking me with him, and we’re doing some sort of strange dance together, him yanking his t-shirt over his head, as I try to get his jeans down.
He toes off his shoes and steps out of the jeans now at his ankles.
In the dim light of the room, Liam stands out like a sculpture of masculine perfection. He looks like one of those huge rugby players, not the fat ones, but the ones that are pure, built heaven. Liam’s muscle is clearly used, if that makes any sense. It's not the feigned display of strength that Nick owns, with his rigid eight pack, waxed body, and skinny legs. Liam is all huge biceps, slabs of pecs, and those big ridges of muscle that run down the side on men. Down to where the groin is. I have forgotten the name for these muscles but they’re delicious. His thighs are big too, corded with strength.
I revel in his strength, wanting it on me, in me. He can take me over, take me under, make me forget. Make me new somehow.
He resumes his job of divesting me of all my clothing by yanking my panties down my legs, so rough it burns the skin a little, but I don't complain, I like it. I like the urgency and the need I can sense in him, a need to match my own.
Finally, I am naked, and Liam is only in his boxer shorts. There's a split-second, where we both hesitate. It resonates in the air between us, hanging there, a moment of uncertainty, a moment in time where we could both turn back from this precipice.
Then we move.
We don't take that last chance to stop this madness, and instead we meet it head on.
His hands are on me, demanding, pulling me into him at the same time his mouth finds mine. My breasts meet his hard chest as I reach my arms up to tangle my fingers in his hair. His lips leave mine to land on the side of my jaw, kissing and nibbling there, before moving down to the column of my throat, kissing th
ere too, and then to my neck. He angles my head to one side to give him better access, and nips and licks and sucks the crook of my neck, making me squirm and sway.
I seek out his mouth once more needing to taste again, and when I do he grunts and I make a soft mewling sound in the back of my throat that I can’t stop.
My feet leave the ground and I realize he's lifted me and is moving forward with me in his arms to place me on the work surface that runs down one side of the small cabin.
He tips me slightly by lifting my legs so that I'm right on the edge, pussy angled into the air, then pulls himself free of his boxer briefs.
He doesn't take them down, but simply pulls himself out, and it's such a rough, raw act that it gives me a terrible thrill right down my spine.
He looks at me as he lines himself up with my entrance, but then something passes over his face, a look of sharp disappointment.
What just happened?
"Ah, shit. Condoms, we don't have any.”
I smile. “I do. Someone, either Nancy, or a previous guest left a box in the bathroom. They’re unopened.”
He leaves me for a moment and my skin goosebumps at his absence. When he returns, I see the doubt there again. The battle to do the right thing and not to give into this craziness between us. I don’t want him to stop, so I lick my lower lip, slow and purposeful and let my hand trail out to touch his hard, thick dick.
He’s long but it’s his girth which is more noticeable, and a little scary.
With long, capable fingers, he unwraps the cellophane from the box and gloves up. I am still in the vulnerable position he pulled me into on the counter, my pussy in the air, exposed and on display.
I should be seriously second guessing what I'm about to do, but I can’t bring myself to.
I look up at him from under my lashes and I say, with genuine shyness. “I want you so much.”
“Fuck, Abi.” He hisses as he rolls the condom to the base of his truly impressive penis.
Then I am doing something I would never do in my normal life, outside of this strange, dreamlike night, on this small boat rocking in the big bay.