Kissing The Enemy

by Helena Newbury

  I suddenly realized who she reminded me of: Rico. That same iron-hard loyalty. I’d never seen it in women before. Either I never met a woman’s friends because it was a one night stand, or their “friends” were back-biting bitches competing for my attention. With Irina and Rachel, it was different. I straightened up and tried not to loom so much. “I’m not going to hurt her,” I said in a softer tone.

  “You’re goddamn straight, you’re not,” said Rachel. A lock of dark hair had fallen over her face and she blew it out of the way. She stared at me for another few seconds, arms still crossed, and then said, “She really likes you. Irina doesn’t do happy. She’s too freakin’ Russian. But I can tell when she’s thinking about you because she smiles. She deserves to smile more.”

  I nodded.

  Rachel leaned in close. “I heard the two of you on the phone. Well, her end of it. Anyone who makes a girl make those noises can’t be all bad.”

  Our eyes locked. Damn, she was fiery and sexy as hell. I only had eyes for Irina, but some guy was going to need a reinforced bed.

  “I don’t care who you are,” Rachel told me. “Break her heart and I’ll kick your ass.”

  Before I could answer, she was off down the hallway. “She’s in the last room on your right,” she called over her shoulder.

  I didn’t need telling twice. I raced to the end of the hallway, grabbed the door handle...and stopped.

  Irina was alone in the huge, wood-floored dance studio, balanced on one leg with her arms overhead. She was facing the windows and the setting sun painted the front of her body with reds and oranges: her platinum-blonde hair gleamed like liquid copper, her white leotard turned to polished brass. Her back was icy perfection, the Lycra stretched tight over the sensuous arch of her spine and the firm curves of her ass. My ice maiden, half consumed by fire.

  I was desperate to get in there. I needed to kiss her, touch her, fuck her...but she was so perfect, standing balanced there, that interrupting her would have been like taking a sledgehammer to a priceless statue. If someone had told me, a week before, that I’d stand there and watch a woman instead of muscling straight in there, I’d have called them crazy. But then I’d never met anyone like Irina.

  She slowly came out of the pose, her arms and legs descending as gracefully as ribbons drifting on the breeze. She turned and our eyes met.

  Enough goddamn watching.

  I threw open the door and strode across the room. I had her face between my palms before she could speak, my lips spreading her open so that I could plunge deep and—Jesus! Kissing her felt so good, all my anger and frustration evaporating in an instant. I didn’t care about the Russians or territory or anything else. I just wanted to keep feeling those silk-soft lips against mine. The very tip of her quick, pink tongue brushed mine and I felt it all the way down to my toes.

  I needed this woman. I wanted to fall into this woman and never surface. She bathed away my sins, freed me of my troubles. And all the time, the lust that had been building in me for days was burning hotter and hotter, demanding that I melt away all that icy self-control and make her scream my name.

  I laid my hands on the back of her head, just under the tight bun of hair, and drew them very slowly down her neck. I broke the kiss because I wanted to hear the noise she made. At first, it was a slow pant, her mouth open and her eyes still closed. My hands reached the backs of her shoulders, strong fingers pressing firmly into her aching muscles, and it turned into a groan.

  My hands carried on down, following the arch of her spine, and reached the gorgeous, upthrust curve at the top of her rump and she held her breath, biting her lip in a way that made my cock surge. I held her like that for a second...and then my hands were on her ass, squeezing hard, working the firm flesh with my fingers, and she moaned. That did it. I had to kiss her again so I covered her lips with mine, absorbing her cries as I pulled her groin tight against mine and let her feel how hard she’d made me.

  When we broke the kiss again, both of us were hazy-eyed, almost drunk with it. I’d never wanted a woman so goddamn much. And I’d never wanted it like this, wanted her as well as her body.

  This wasn’t just about sex anymore. And that was going to make the sex even better.

  “Where do we go?” I muttered. I had to keep my voice low because my face was so close to hers and I couldn’t bear to move back.

  She writhed against me. She knew what I meant: not my place or yours, but here in the building. Neither of us could wait.

  “There’s a store cupboard,” she gasped, her eyes heavy-lidded. “Where they store all the old musical instruments. But it’s full of spiders.” Then she blinked and gave me one of those icy, imperious glares I loved so much. “Which I’m not scared of.”

  I felt myself grin. “Uh-huh.” I loved that she had a fear. She was normally so tough. “How about here?” I looked around the room: big and airy and not at all dark or private. But the building was pretty much empty.

  She glanced at the door. “Someone might come in.”

  “Someone might come in,” I agreed.

  I watched her carefully as she thought about it, loving the battle between her fears and her lust. She kept looking from the door to me, her eyes focused on my chest. And then, suddenly, she said, “Kakogo chyorta.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means the hell with it,” she said. And pressed herself hard against me, her head tilting up for my kiss.

  24

  Irina

  I heard him growl deep in his throat and then his whole body was pressed to mine from shoulder to thighs, the heat of him throbbing into me. His lips were savage but they teased as much as they demanded—they’d ravish me hard and then pull back just a little, making me rise up en pointe to keep contact. Every time he did it, I felt him smile against my lips: he wanted me to be active, wanted a partner, not a passive doll. He was so different to the Russians Vasiliy had tried to pair me with in the past. Oh, they’d say that they wanted a woman to enjoy sex, but to them that meant she smiled before sucking their cock. If you actually showed what you wanted, they made you feel like a freak.

  Not Angelo. Sex with him was like a dance and, as new partners, we were feeling each other out. His hands slid down my back, cupping my ass through the Lycra, and I could feel his chest swell against me as he drew in a breath, reveling in the feel of me. That sent a deep, hot twist of pleasure straight down to my groin—no one had ever touched me with such obvious bliss. I could feel him noting my responses, using my moans to guide him in exactly how I liked to be handled.

  His hands explored my whole body through my leotard, the material thin enough that the warmth of his hands soaked straight through to my skin as he palmed my breasts and made slow circles over them. I moved in rhythm with him, feeling my nipples harden, pressing my breasts wantonly to him and groaning to let him know when he was going at just the right speed.

  He moved his head beside mine, laying a string of tiny kisses down my ear before he spoke. “I’m taking that thing off you, now.”

  I glanced at the door and tried to figure out how much time we had before the janitor made his rounds. But then he kissed down the length of my throat and every touch of his lips sent a pulse of heat expanding out across my skin, merging and multiplying like ripples on a pond, until I was squirming and panting, eyes closed and hands grabbing at his shoulders for support.

  His hands followed behind his lips, smoothing down the length of my bare neck and throat. There’s no feeling in the world like being caressed by a really big, strong set of hands that you trust to never, ever hurt you. His thumbs traced my collarbones and then, without hesitation, his fingers hooked under the shoulder straps of my leotard...and hooked them down and off. I caught my breath as my shoulders were bared. Even that tiny bit of nudity felt scandalous in the huge, light room.

  But before I could get too nervous, his lips came down on my bare shoulder, kissing it gently and then working inward to my throat. I didn’t prot
est—I forgot how to protest. He started to peel the leotard lower, rolling it down over itself. I could hear his breathing quicken as the upper slopes of my breasts were revealed, the Lycra stretching tighter and tighter as it neared their peaks. He must have realized, by now, that I wasn’t wearing a separate bra.

  Something else was happening, too: as he rolled the fabric down, the shoulder straps were trapping my arms against my body. Already, my hands had had to slide from Angelo’s shoulders to his hips. Soon, my arms would be pinned and I’d be helpless. The idea only added to the building heat.

  I could feel him looking at me. I opened my eyes, heavy-lidded and slow, and saw him staring with wonder at my chest—I’d never seen a more intense look of lust. His powerful hands rolled the fabric lower, lower...and with a sudden rush, my breasts spilled free, the skin throbbing in the chill air.

  “Jesus,” he breathed. “You’re fucking perfect. I’ve been trying to guess how you’d look but...you’re even better.”

  My chest went tight. “Thank you,” I breathed.

  He hooked the leotard an inch lower, so my breasts were completely free, and leaned in close. I felt his hot breath on me an instant before his tongue bathed my nipple—God! I’d been dreaming of that mouth on me, imagining what that hard upper lip and the soft, sensuous lower would feel like on my body, but my fantasies hadn’t come close.

  I let out a high little cry of need and that seemed to set him off. He grabbed me by the upper arms and tugged me against him, opening his mouth wide so that he could lick and suck as much of me as possible, not just the stiffening nipple and areola but the soft skin around it. He started gently and grew rougher, spurred on by my moans. He covered his teeth with his lips and gave me soft little bites that made me shudder and gasp. He twisted his tongue around the base of each nipple and spiraled upward to the tip. When his mouth wasn’t enough, he used one hand to work my shining breast and moved his lips to the other.

  I wanted to grab at him, to undress him, but by now the shoulder straps of the leotard were down around my elbows, trapping my arms to my sides. I clutched at his ass instead, delighting at the hardness of him. Then he was rolling the leotard lower and lower, eager to reveal all of me, lips working their way down my stomach and over the dark hollow of my navel, down towards my pelvis—

  I was wearing thong panties under the leotard. Both of us looked down as he reached the waistband—would he leave them on or—

  No. He rolled them down my body along with the leotard. I felt the kiss of cool air against the sensitive skin of my pubis, then through my curls of soft hair. Then my leotard and panties fell to the floor and I stood there naked and panting in the very center of the room.

  For a second, he just looked at me, his eyes raking from my face to my toes in long, slow sweeps. Then his hands started to smooth over my body and I saw him look off to the side. When I followed his gaze, I gasped.

  We were reflected in the mirrored wall. A dancer, naked save for her ballet shoes, her body utterly exposed, even her hair pinned up out of the way to leave her throat bare. Before her, her lover, his muscled body obvious even through his suit, his strong chest rising and falling as his hands swept over her.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to see the body I’d been imagining.

  My hands grabbed for the soft silk of his tie, suddenly frantic. He gazed down at me, brown eyes tiger-bright, as I loosened the knot and pulled it free. I leaned forward to push his suit jacket back over his shoulders and my naked breasts grazed his chest, making both of us gasp.

  The jacket slid down his arms, hitting the polished floor with a soft kiss of expensive fabric. His arms...I couldn’t stop looking at his arms. Men try to show off their muscles in t-shirts and tank tops but Angelo’s sculpted form was perfectly, effortlessly displayed by soft, touchable cotton that flowed over every hard line. I couldn’t stop myself: my hands went to his neck and then traced their way down. His shoulders were so wide, like he’d batter a hundred men out of the way to get to you. His biceps stretched out the thin white fabric, solid and warm under my fingers. His forearms, as my fingertips trailed down them, were thickly hard and ridged with veins—

  I looked up into his eyes. We were breathing in sync, both of us staring at the other as if they blamed them for being so out of control. Then his hands were on my ass, pulling me hard to him, and he kissed me long and deep as my fingers started to work at the buttons of his shirt. I had my eyes closed as I pushed each tiny, hard disc through its hole. I had to imagine what I was revealing as his shirt opened up, visions of dark ink and tan skin exploding in my mind as his tongue danced with mine.

  I undid the last button and tugged the tails of his shirt out of his pants. I had to see! I broke the kiss and stepped back—

  And gasped.

  I’d stroked my fingers over his stomach enough times that I knew the hardness there, knew each defined rise and fall of his six pack. But I wasn’t ready for how the sun lit up his tan skin like gold, or the raw power that his abs suggested, the way they made me think of him lunging and thrusting and pounding….

  I’d slid my palms across his chest, felt those big, smooth slabs of muscle that made him so solid...but I wasn’t ready for the size of him, for how his chest filled my vision, dwarfing me, or how those dark pink nipples made me want to lick him there and make him groan.

  What I really wasn’t ready for, though, was the tattoo.

  I’d thought it was more than one, since the shadows beneath his shirt seemed to cover him so completely. I’d imagined a confusion of women’s names and symbols. What I got instead was just one thing, simple and beautiful and brutal.

  A pair of angel wings, joined by a cross, had been meticulously picked out across his chest, filling both of those broadly curving pecs. Every feather was a work of art: the wings seemed to live and move as he breathed, the cross staying still and unshakeable between them. Standing there in the sunlight, the rays streaming through his outstretched shirt, he looked almost otherworldly, an angel sent from heaven or hell: I wasn’t sure which. He seemed to glow with a heat and power that could melt me utterly. I looked up into his eyes, awestruck….

  And something in my expression tipped him over the edge. He grabbed me around the waist and towed me over to the mirror, almost lifting me off my feet. My ass touched the smooth wood of the barre that ran horizontally just in front of the mirror. “Open your legs,” he told me.

  I blinked. “What?”

  He moved closer. “Open those gorgeous fucking legs,” he said. “I’m going to do to you what I promised I would, the first night we met.”

  I slowly parted my thighs, my heart pounding in my chest, and gripped the barre with both hands.

  I’d never seen anyone kneel the way Angelo did. Other men kneel and it’s an act of submission. He knelt the way a king would kneel, back ramrod straight. Somehow, he managed to not look any smaller. In fact, the muscled bulk of him, those wide shoulders and broad chest all moving slowly, deliberately between my spread thighs...it made it feel like I was the one submitting. His eyes didn’t say okay, I’ll do this for you. They said, are you ready? Because I’m coming to get you.

  With the tip of his tongue, he licked slowly along my inner thigh and I felt the pleasure surge and sing, working its way upward towards my groin. He licked along my other leg and I began to tremble, fingers tight around the smooth wood of the barre. He looked up at me and I stared back at him, his naked chest hypnotic as it rose and fell beneath the open shirt. He moved directly below my groin, his brown-amber eyes blazing at me, his shining hair so richly black against my skin...and he spoke.

  His lips were maybe an inch from my lips so each syllable buzzed and throbbed through them, his low growl like the biggest bass speaker I’d ever felt. And even as the sound of what he was saying hit from below, the sense of it penetrated my brain and spiked down to my groin in a black lightning bolt, the two elements colliding to make me pant and writhe.

  “You’re like so
mething out of a dream,” he said. “And guys like me don’t have dreams.” He took a long, slow breath and I gasped as I felt the soft suction pull at me. “When I first saw you, up on stage, I thought you were magical. Queen of the fucking elves. Not meant to be touched by mortal man. Well, I’m going to touch you. You better believe I’m going to touch you. I’m going to stroke and lick every inch of you until you’re begging, screaming for me to let you come.”

  I could feel myself getting wetter and wetter. I was going to be soaked before his lips ever touched me.

  “See, that’s what I love about you, Irina. You’re so cold. You’re this ice princess, so strong and noble. But underneath….”

  He raised his mouth until it was only a half-inch from my folds.

  “...underneath, where it matters—”

  He closed the distance again. A quarter inch away, no more.

  “...underneath all that ice—”

  I was heaving for breath, now, eyes tight shut. I’d never felt anything like the overwhelming pleasure from the vibrations of his voice...it was everything I could do to stop myself pressing down against his face and locking my legs around his head.

  He moved his head so agonizingly close that his lips must have only just been missing me—the thickness of a butterfly’s wing, a soap bubble….

  “....under the ice you’re just burning. You’re molten. You don’t let anyone see it but you’re aching for someone to take you and strip you and give you a good. Long. Fucking.”

  I felt the tip of his tongue part my folds. I just had time to open my eyes wide before his whole tongue speared up into me, hot and determined, spreading my slickened walls wide. He didn’t stop until his lips were pressed hard against me, the strength of him such that he could actually rise on his knees a little and lift me, forcing me to go up en pointe for a second. The pleasure was rippling out in hot, fierce waves, rebounding and concentrating, building towards a climax.