by Clara Leigh
“Please, Dare.”
He lifts up a little, balancing his weight on his forearms. His face is so lovely, and serious. His gaze meets mine.
“You’re mental torture,” he confesses. The tip of him notches right at my entrance. “One push and I could be right inside you, Flicka. I could be filling you up, making you absolutely mine.”
“I want to be his… yours.” I don’t have control over my tongue right now, let alone my lower body, which I can’t seem to keep still, not when it feels so good to rub against him.
He lifts himself just out of reach. “You know that we can’t. Not like this.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“We need to sensible.”
To hell with sensible.
“I’m guessing you’re not on the pill.”
Shit! This is like for reals. I mean, he’s thinking about consequences beyond what the fuck Chinchilla are going to make of this.
“Are you?”
Hell no! Can you imagine the uproar if that got out? I’m supposed to be pure and wholesome. I don’t do the dirty. I’m not even supposed to think about doing the dirty. I totally want to do the dirty with him right now. I think I tell him the last bit.
“You’d be okay inside me for a couple of seconds, right?” It’s only if he comes inside me that we have a problem. “I want to feel you for real before we have to put a barrier between us.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Flicka.” He strokes my face. I kiss him some more. I can’t stop kissing him and squeezing him and touching him all over.
I just want to feel him go deep.
I want it so bad right now.
Virginity is a state I’m so done with.
I think he’s ready to be done with it too. “Think about all the fucking we can do once the first time is over with. There’ll be no worrying about whether it’ll work. It just will, and it’ll be fantastic, every bloody time… Every time it’ll be even more fantastic. In fact, it’ll be so awesome that we won’t want to stop doing it ever, and they’ll have to send in the fire and rescue to tear us apart or squirt us to cool us down or something.”
“Flicka, I’ve been around the block a few times. It’d be irresponsible to do anything without getting checked out first. And it’s not worth the risk.”
“You have condoms?” I say to him. At least, I think that’s what I say. I’m so crazy with need I’m not sure everything comes out in the right order. “Put one on. In fact, give me. I’ll put it on you.” That’s how much I need to touch him.
He hands me a package that he gets out of the bedside drawer.
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” he asks, as I rip open the foil.
“I’m pretty sure it’s not rocket science. Well, maybe it’s a kind of rocket science. The science of your rocket, right before it blasts off.”
“Flicka.” He stops me, placing a hand over mine as I attempt to sheath him in latex.
“No good?”
He removes the sheath and chucks it aside. His eyes are warm with love and laughter. I want to sink into their chocolatey depths and wallow for a while.
“Sweetheart, you tore a hole with your nails. You have to be a bit gentle with them. Why don’t you let me? In fact, why don’t we just lie down and relax for a moment?”
It’s not really a question even though he dresses it up as one.
“Come on, lie back down.”
“I don’t want to lie down. I want to fuck. Isn’t that what you want too?”
“It’s totally what I want, and we will. Just in a while.” He tucks me against him in a way that makes it impossible for me to do anything more than wiggle.
“Why don’t you want to fuck me?” I put on an almighty pout too. I realise I sound bratty, but some kind of front is essential to mask the fact that my emotions are tumbling about as if I’m trapped in a tornado. There’s a gaping wound in my chest, and I don’t understand where it came from. I was skipping about on cloud nine ten seconds ago. “You keep stalling. Is there something wrong with me?”
I have to blink really fast and try not to look at him.
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. I very much want you, Flicka. And I’m very much going to do all the things you’re begging me for… when you’re sober.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“High, then.”
I don’t do drugs. “If I’m high, it’s on life and you.”
“As you say.”
I grunt. I’m not mentally incapacitated. I know my own mind. “At least put your hands on me.” I’m horny, Dare. I don’t want to wait.
“They are on you.”
I move one from where he has it resting against my waist and trap it between my thighs. The other I guide towards my breasts. “Play with me.”
“You’re a demoness.”
“Yes, but play with me.”
He catches a nipple and slicks a fingertip against my clit both at the same time.
“I wanna come. I need to come.”
His lips seal against my throat and he sucks. Energy crackles between the points of the triangle he’s created. Dare Wilde knows exactly how to play with me, but I’m still impatient for the main act. It’s only when he drives me over the edge that it genuinely sinks in that it’s not happening tonight.
Post orgasm, I’m too lightheaded and indolent to insist on anything.
-23-
Dare Wilde
Flicka Caine is a horny drunk. She begs. She pleads until my ears ring with her demands. She literally implores me to screw her six ways to Sunday.
Turns out, I’m not arsehole enough to do it. Go me! It’s a poor consolation when I’m at serious risk of straining something vital by fighting every sex-related instinct I possess.
I will not cave to pressure.
However, if she’s still this eager the other side of daybreak, her virginity is history. I’m going to screw her like the wild man I’m reported to be.
It’s a long, hard night with her curled beside me. Her pert little arse rubbing back against my loins. I barely sleep, but what rest I do achieve is filled with melodramatic scenes of us fucking. I want her in every way I can possibly have her, but I want to be certain she wants me in that way too before we do anything. It’s important to me that she comprehends the consequences. I know we’ve already begun something, but the exits are still clearly visible. If one of us wants to back out, it’s possible. However, the more time we spend together, the more steps we take on the path of intimacy, the harder it’ll be to recall the escape route.
Flicka rises before me. I wake the moment she moves, which is just in time to see her scuttle into the bathroom without saying a word. She emerges again looking a million dollars, but groaning like someone drove an axe through her head. Luckily I know the best cure in the universe for a stonking great hangover, and better yet, I don’t have to drag Lorne out of bed to make it because he’s already up and pottering around the kitchen.
“Morning,” he says, throwing poorly disguised smirks at us. “Sleep well?”
“Just give her whatever the hell it is you use to kick start me when I wake in this state and can the innuendos before they start.”
“I wasn’t gonna say nuffing.” He barely contains his laughter. Still, he proves himself a good guy and mixes her the famous Lorne Everett axe-removal tonic.
“Tastes gross,” she complains, but like the good girl she’s been trained to be, she swallows it down. Twenty minutes later, she’s no longer looking as if she’s going to heave, has managed to eat a slice of smoked salmon, and is halfway through her third coffee.
I don’t know where the hell we stand. I can’t get her to make eye contact with me for long enough to start the sort of conversation we need to have, and in any case, Lorne is lurking around being green and prickly.
“I’m going to hit the shower, if that’s okay?” I say. I can’t face breakfast. I don’t want coffee. My body is simultaneously weary and
still on high alert. Relaxing isn’t an option when I’m on tenterhooks, waiting to hear her say that she still wants to rock ‘n’ roll with me.
“I’ll be fine with Lorne,” she says.
“I’ll look after her,” Lorne promises. I even trust him to do so, and that’s saying something considering he’s a total lech.
In the bathroom, I shave before I shower. However, I’m so jittery I cut myself twice.
Once under the spray, I stand there for the longest time. No matter how much I want it to, the cascade can’t wash away my desires. Scenes from last night replay over and over, forming a montage that increases my horniness, rather than relieves it. I don’t want to masturbate. It’s so clichéd, standing in the shower frantically pumping one off. In any case, my cock’s seen too much hand action recently. It craves more than that, wants a touch that isn’t so knowledgeable and a soft warm cave to burrow in.
We came so close last night. Maybe I’m a fool for not having given in. She was begging, after all.
Except, no way am I giving her reasons to label me as a mistake.
Seriously, no way. I have that T-shirt and I don’t need a spare.
That leaves me with two options. Suffer in silence or give my wrist another workout.
It’s a really crappy choice.
-24-
Felicity Caine
Part of me wants the brown leather couch on which my butt is perched to swallow me whole. I said so much stuff last night that I shouldn’t have said. Going to his club, coming home with Dare, sleeping with him, begging him to fuck me silly—what the hell was I thinking?
Sod ‘em all. That’s what. I know the answer. There’s still part of me that’s secretly on-board with everything I did. The same part that wishes Dare hadn’t pulled a shiny, shiny halo out of his back pocket to wear. I’m none too happy to be the holder of the “girl who spent the night with Dare Wilde and didn’t get to go all the way” accolade. As honours go, it’s a sucky one. I really wanted to make love to him.
I still do.
I hear my phone beeping, but I ignore it. I don’t want to know about the outside world. I need to have explanations as to my actions and whereabouts ready before I do that, and in order to create them, I first need to fathom out what the hell outcome I want from this situation. Am I going to backtrack again, or was last night really the tipping point?
Am I going to tell the world I’m having a relationship with a bad man—who really isn’t that bad it would seem—or do we carry on attempting to keep it hidden?
“Did you fuck one another or not?” Lorne’s bluntness brings heat rushing to my cheeks as if I’d been physically slapped. “Because, if not, why the fuck not?”
“He’s a gentleman.” I’m not even going to pretend that I had any part in stalling things. I was ready to let him dive in without a protective jacket.
“The hell he is! He’s a first class cad. You must have said something or given the impression that you weren’t—”
“I so was,” I say, cutting him off. “It wasn’t me who held back. He keeps stalling things. I dunno, maybe he’s not as into me as you think.”
Lorne fixes me with his ocean blue stare. “You don’t even believe that yourself. You’ve fuck all chance of convincing me. In any case, the evidence doesn’t stack up. I was here when you enjoyed your first late night tête-à-tête. And, I’m the one who’s been at the other end of the phone after his performances outside your window. Would this also be the time to mention that he only spends this long in the shower when he has sticky issues to work out.”
“So I’m an issue?”
He shakes his head, making his shaggy blond hair sway. “Lady, I’ve no doubt you’re the mother of all issues on two legs, but I was referring to his more personal, physical issues that obviously require lengthy attention right now.”
“Huh?” Colour me dense, but I can’t figure out what it is he’s trying to tell me.
“Sweetheart, he’s wanking in the shower because he wants you that badly.”
“No way.”
“You don’t think he tugs it for you? Sheesh, you’ve been watching live performances. You’ve got to know how into you he is.”
“Not enough to do me while I’m tipsy.”
“Are you drunk now?”
I said tipsy, not drunk, but I let it ride. “No.”
“Then what the fuck are you sitting out here with me for? Go and screw him.”
“In the shower?”
“In the shower, on the floor, swinging from the ceiling fan, or wherever the hell else you please. You can bring him out here and go at it on the coffee table if you’ve a particular hankering for a witness. I don’t mind. I know what his dick looks like.” His tongue sweeps over his lips in a way that makes me uneasy, but he’s still all smiles. “He’s yours already, Flicka. Go and claim him and put the poor sod out of his misery.”
“How can you say he’s mine when he wouldn’t go all the way last night?”
“Because he wouldn’t. He’s screwed a heck of a lot of drunken girls. If he’s stalling over doing you in that state, he’s obviously concerned enough for your welfare to consider your feelings. He’s Dare Wilde, Flicka. His reputation isn’t a rumour. He’s for real. At least he was until you showed up.”
I gawp at him, doing my best goldfish impersonation.
“I’ve seen everything,” he continues. “I know everything. For heaven’s sake get yourself in there and do whatever it is you need to do to sort this out. If you want each other then have each other. I can’t see the sense in all this pansying around pretending otherwise.”
“Chinchilla don’t—”
“Fuck ‘em! There’s more to life than some billion-dollar movie deal. Having wads of cash is great and all, but finding that one special person to be with is priceless.”
He turns around and puts the kitchen counter between us after that explosion. I find my feet and follow him a pace or two.
“I didn’t realise you were such a romantic?”
He picks up a tea towel and busies himself drying dishes. “While I’m unfortunately too well acquainted with how big a ditherer you are. Get your butt moving, Flicka Caine. My friend needs screwing.”
I stand, but I don’t move my feet.
“Do I have to march you to the door?”
“All right!” I raise my hands. “I’ll go check on him, see if he wants anything.”
The walk across the apartment to the bathroom seems infinitely long with Lorne watching my every step. Part of me wants to dawdle, but I’m determined to prove to both Lorne and myself that I’m actually capable of decisiveness. When I put my knuckles to the wood, I half expect Dare to yell at me to bugger off and wait until he’s done. The reality is that I don’t get an answer. Most likely that’s due to the amount of water cascading over his lugholes.
Lorne waves at me to just go on in.
Really?
I generally avoid muscling in on people while they’re using the bathroom. It’s polite.
“In,” he mouths.
I try the handle, expecting to find the door has been bolted on the other side. No such luck. I slither around the door frame and find he’s engaged behind a frosted panel, which is a massive relief. If he’d been enjoying the newspaper and an hour long crap I’d have died on the spot. “Dare,” I croak. There’s no way he heard me.
I move closer. His image is fuzzy through the glass. He’s just a pink impression of flesh, the hard lines of his body having been softened by the distortion of the frosted doors.
“Hey you.” I knock on the glass.
“Shit!”
The expletive is followed by some frantic motion and several thuds. He bends and rises again as I tug open the glass door. “You all right.”
“Sure, just dropped the shampoo bottle.” He holds it out to me, but even as I accept it, my attention wanders south. I can’t help it, everything about him makes me want to stare, and it’s too big a treat seeing him naked not
to drink my fill of his raw masculine perfection.
Seeing him in the flesh, it’s no surprise that I lost my mind last night and begged him to impale me.
The moment my mind wanders towards sex is the moment my gaze drops, and Dare’s follows. He shoots his hand across his loins, but there’s no hiding the standing ovation he’s giving me.
“Wow!” I swallow hard. I’d like to meet his gaze, but I can’t seem to lift my head.
“What did you want?”
“I… Lorne seemed to think I should be in here.”
“Did he?”
“I guess he thinks… We need to talk, don’t we?”
“Is that what you came in here to do?”
“Yeah.” I snap my head back so that I’m no longer focussed on his tackle. “I think you know how I feel, but you keep holding back, so there must be a reason for it. I thought it was just… I thought it was because of my situation with Chinchilla, but it isn’t only that, is it?”
He braces his hands against the tiles to either side of him. His eyes are deep fathomless pools as he looks at me. Water flows around his neck and trickles down his chest and abs.
“I have a kid.”
I have a kid. What does that mean? I seriously fail to comprehend. It’s as if there’s a mental block in my brain that means even though I hear the words, they don’t have actual meaning. I have a kid.
A kid…
I assume he means a child and not a pet goat.
He has a kid!
“Fuck!”
For real?
“How?”
“The usual way. By fucking.”
“How old?”
“Six. Nearly seven.”
“How come I don’t know? I mean before now. How is that everyone isn’t aware?”
He turns off the spray and waves at me to pass a towel. Only when his face is dry does he answer.
“She wasn’t planned. Her mother and I, it was a one-time thing. A stupid thing…A drunk, high-on-life, thoughtless, should have known better thing. It was her first time, and Sunsetters had just made stars of us all. We all thought we were invincible.”