Never Better: A Dark Obsession Novel

by Charlotte Stein

  And he only looked back when she started sliding his jacket off him.

  God, she wished she hadn’t started sliding his jacket off him.

  She did it just as badly as the zipper. She pressed close to him without meaning to—close enough that her breasts pushed against his chest. And though she intended to grab and pull the material, her hands just seemed to fall inside. She wound up groping his shoulders, through nothing more than a jersey.

  Much to his obvious dismay.

  “Lydia—” he started to say.

  But she knew enough to finish for him. He was going to say stop. He was going to say slow down. He was going to say we have all night. She was sure he was. She even went to say to him come on, this is our third date.

  Only she didn’t have to, this time.

  No, this time he didn’t need to be told.

  He just kissed her, so sudden that she didn’t quite know how to respond. For a moment, she just stood there, turned to stone by the great wave of excitement that followed his mouth on hers. Though, that was fine, because he was moving her. And not just towards the couch, either. He was pushing her towards her bedroom. Somehow, he knew it was hers, and they were going in, and then just like that they were sprawled on the bed.

  As if it was all just suddenly easy.

  And truth was: it felt like it.

  It felt like this was finally, finally it. His kisses were only getting hotter, and wetter—and they weren’t limited to her lips. He moved to her jaw, her throat. For a second, it even seemed that he was going to go lower. That he might actually run that hot mouth over her breasts, over the top of her dress.

  Or even underneath.

  Fuck, what if he did it underneath?

  She would die. She was sure she would die.

  She was dying already. Her heart tried to beat right out her chest. Her whole body was just one long humming throb. And her breath was definitely coming too fast and too hard. It sounded like she’d just run up three flights of stairs. It sounded like she was panting—and what he was doing only made it worse. His hand had actually slid down to something that might have been her upper thigh.

  Then when he shifted it a little, her dress ruffled up.

  It ruffled up, like he really did want to get at her.

  So really, was it so shocking that she helped out?

  He was right there anyway. She barely had to move to get his hand in contact with her pussy. Just a slight shift and there it was, easy as anything.

  Way easier than his hand on her breast in the car.

  But his reaction was much, much worse.

  He ripped that hand away like she’d scalded him—and in all fairness, she couldn’t guarantee that she hadn’t. It felt like she had a furnace between her legs. All she could feel was the sweet unbearable ache of it, constant and so incredibly demanding she couldn’t fight it for a moment. Her head wanted her to say sorry. To slow down and take stock.

  But her body spoke first.

  “Oh god, Isaac please. Please just touch me,” she gasped out.

  And she didn’t regret it. Not even when he passed a hand over his face.

  Not even when he answered with incredulity.

  “You want me to that badly?”

  “God, yes. Yes. So much.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Then at least let me do it myself. Let me make myself come while you kiss me like this. It won’t take long—I’m so close a stiff breeze could push me over.”

  It was true, too. She was. Every time she so much as moved she could feel herself getting to that blissful point. It kept rolling up, then receding—each time a little fiercer than before. But he still wouldn’t give in to it.

  Instead, he looked away. “Christ. All we’ve done is kiss.”

  “Kissing is enough, the way you do it.”

  “I thought I was being pretty restrained.”

  “The intensity isn’t the problem. It’s that you’re good at it. You’re so fucking good at it. I swear all you have to do is lick my lips like that, and I get so fucking wet.”

  “Oh fuck. Fuck, did you have to tell me that?”

  “I did if it will make you say yes.”

  “Everything you do makes me want to say yes,” he said, so shaky and unsure that she went to say more. To convince him, with some other filthy thing.

  But she didn’t need it. A second after speaking, he broke.

  He just kissed her, like he’d done in the living room.

  Like he couldn’t stop it—and didn’t want to.

  And as soon as he did, she didn’t hesitate. She pushed her hand inside her panties. She searched out her aching clit, so desperate and eager, she didn’t even think about what it would feel like when she made contact. Then her fingers just brushed over the tip of her stiff bud, and she knew. Oh, yeah, she knew then, all right.

  It was like someone had connected her to an electric current. She almost swallowed her own tongue, it was so intense. She had to ease back just to stop her orgasm from potentially killing her—though there were other reasons, too.

  Like the fact that he was watching her.

  He was watching her fuck herself. Carefully and surreptitiously, in between languid kisses to her mouth and throat. But he was definitely doing it. She could see his eyes drifting down when she arched her back, and again when she rubbed a little faster.

  Though it was her expressions that really seemed to get him.

  She let out a long moan, and felt him shift just so he could see it. Just so he could take in her parted lips and her frown of concentration, in this almost feverish sort of way. His eyes actually skittered over face, as if searching for something he didn’t know how to find. And it made her eager to give him more. To slow her movements even further, so he could savor everything she was doing.

  And so she could savor him.

  He was biting his lip now, and he only bit it harder as time ticked on. A little more of this show—of her arching her back and rocking against her hand and making hot, desperate sounds—and he was definitely going to do more than kiss her. All she had to do was hold off, and he would break.

  Though when he did, she wasn’t prepared.

  “For god’s sake, just let me do it,” he burst out.

  And all she could do was gasp nonsense in response.

  “Are you serious? Are you—”

  “Yes. Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

  “Ohhhh my god, no. No do whatever you want,” she said.

  Though it shocked her that she meant it.

  She meant it: she wanted everything he had to give.

  “All right. This is gonna be quick and dirty.”

  “Quick and dirty sounds fucking amazing.”

  “Spread your legs for me.”

  “Fuck, that was even better.”

  “Glad you think so. It was hard getting it out.”

  “It shouldn’t be. I nearly came just hearing it.”

  He cursed, after she said came.

  But it was her starting to wriggle out her panties that pushed him further. She got about as far as hooking her thumbs into the elastic, and then he made a frustrated sound. He grabbed her wrist—though not to stop her, oh no, no, no.

  To give her instructions.

  “No, keep them on. Keep your panties on, just…pull them to one side. Just enough so I can get at you, okay? Just enough so I can get to your clit,” he said.

  And somehow, that was even more exciting than being completely bare. It sent her reeling before he’d even touched her—and then he did and it was just way too much. She sobbed the second his fingers made contact, and again when she realized what he was doing.

  He wasn’t just stroking her. Oh no, no. He was parting her lips.

  Then once he’d got everything just right, he bent his head.

  And fucking licked her clit.

  He licked her, so sudden and firm she almost came right then and there. Then he did it again, and almost became actu
ally. Pleasure just swamped her in a great impossible wave—so intense that she couldn’t cry out. She couldn’t do anything. All she was able to do was feel it, to the detriment of everything else.

  In fact, it was only when she came down from it that she noticed.

  He wasn’t touching her any more. He wasn’t even laid at her side.

  He was sat on the edge of the bed, with his back to her.

  At which point, things became pretty clear. In fact, they became so clear she wondered how she hadn’t realized before. All the signs were there—from his extreme reluctance to do anything more than kiss, to his reactions when she tried to push things.

  Though god, it was hard to say it aloud.

  “It’s not just about worrying over me, is it. Sex bothers you.”

  “That isn’t the way I would put it.”

  “Then tell me how you would.”

  “Being around you bothers me.”

  He didn’t say it to be cruel. She could tell, even though he kept his back to her.

  But it hit hard, anyway. She had to take a second before she could answer, and her voice still wavered a little when she did. “Because I push you?”

  “You don’t push me. You don’t need to push me. You barely have to do a fucking thing, and I’m out of my ever-loving mind.”

  “I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”

  He turned, then. And not in his usual careful, deliberate manner.

  No—this was a clumsy move, borne of frustration.

  And that same frustration near sang in his voice and gestures.

  “Do you know how many times I’ve lost control in my entire life? The total is zero, Lydia. It’s zero. I don’t lose control—not ever. It’s the main reason I was chosen for the jobs I’ve done. There isn’t a thing on earth that can put me under pressure, make me lose my cool, make me fuck things up. And you come along and just take me to fucking pieces with a word. You walk into a room, and I can’t help looking at you. You meet my eyes and I meet yours back. You ask me questions; I answer them without even thinking. I answer them in a way I’ve never answered anyone. Do you understand that? You don’t. I can see that you don’t. You think I’m exaggerating.”

  “No, I get it, honestly I get what you’re saying—”

  “If you got what I was saying you wouldn’t want to be around me. Try to understand: I’m afraid of myself when I’m with you. I’m afraid of what you can do to me, of what you can persuade me to—”

  He cut himself off before he could get to that last do, and turned away again.

  As if it shamed him, just to think about it.

  Which frankly seemed crazy to her.

  It made her snort, a second before she attempted to blow his reasoning to bits. “I don’t know why. I haven’t been able to persuade you to do anything.”

  “Honey, I walked in your door and froze. I fucking froze. Just being in someone’s home and seeing you look like that—it was too much. And it under five minutes, you had me kissing you. You had me on your bed.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Isaac, but all that sounds pretty normal.”

  “Not for me it isn’t. Never for me. You’re the only woman I’ve ever done that for.”

  “You’ve never kissed a woman first in a big sexy rush?”

  She laughed, after she’d got the question out.

  But then he said, “I’ve barely kissed any women period.”

  And the laughter died pretty damned quick.

  In fact, for a second all she could do was stare at his great, still back, mouth half hanging open. Had he just said barely? And if he had, how many was that exactly? It didn’t sound like ten. She wasn’t even sure if it meant five.

  But less seemed like a completely bonkers number.

  “That can’t be true,” she said, the second it occurred. “I mean...look at you.”

  “Honey, I went straight from being a closed off high school kid to the kind of work that takes that closed off quality and turns it into seven layers of steel. What do you think—that I have a new girl every weekend? When you hear me talking about dating, does that scream here’s a guy who knows what he’s doing?”

  “Maybe not. But the pussy eating kind of did.”

  “You say that like it takes a thousand fucks to learn.”

  “For most guys it absolutely does.”

  “Yeah, well, not for the ones who read.”

  He said it like he’d said the rest: in that exasperated tone.

  But she couldn’t help noticing something else in there, too.

  A hint of pride. A lick of amusement.

  And she knew why.

  “Oh my god,” she said. “All those romance novels.”

  “Most of them are a fucking how to manual. Written by largely women. All you have to do is take note of what they say and then pay a little attention.”

  “Pay a little attention to what?”

  “Your body language.”

  She shook her head, half-laughing and half-awed. “So basically you used your self-defense tricks on me.”

  “Of course I did. It’s what I do. And by the way it’s a lot easier to figure out the next necessary move when it’s something to do with sex.”

  “Did you know that I was holding off when I touched myself?”

  “I’m gonna pretend that wasn’t a serious question.”

  “And when I was—”

  “It’s always clear to me,” he said, and she believed him.

  He was great at seeing right to the heart of her, no question.

  The only problem was: he was terrible at doing the same for himself.

  He was so terrible that she had to explain, in patient detail. “So if you know every move so well, and are so aware even in the heat of the moment, why are you afraid of being out of control? You clearly never are, at all. Even when you lose it enough to overcome all your reservations and just hurl your mouth at mine, you keep your head enough to scope out exactly what I want. And then you give it to me.”

  He went silent after that. Really, really silent.

  So silent, that she started to worry.

  “Are you...are you okay?” she asked.

  And she was glad she did.

  He turned to answer her then, gaze rueful. “Fuck, no. I just spent the last minute trying to figure out how to poke a hole in what you just said and there’s fucking nothing. Goddamn, that shit is airtight. It’s so airtight I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of it.”

  “Well, that’s the thing about you. You’re good at helping everyone but yourself.

  “Oh man, that was even better. That was genius.”

  “Yeah, I thought you’d appreciate me throwing that back in your face.”

  “I really did. It was perfect, just perfect,” he said. Then even better, “You’re perfect.”

  Though, she couldn’t quite bask in that last one the way she wanted to.

  Instead, she had to go with the obvious.

  “Maybe that’s why you don’t want to fuck me.”

  “Ah, so now it’s Madonna/Whore?”

  “You tell me, babe. You tell me.”

  “There are very few pedestals in any of my filthy thoughts about you.”

  She bit her lip, for that. “So, you do have such thoughts, then.”

  “Constantly. Obsessively. In all conceivable variations.”

  “Maybe you could tell me what some of those variations are.”

  “Mostly they’re things you’ve dirty talked to me about.”

  “So when we were on the phone together—”

  “I wasn’t jerking off, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, and she couldn’t quite hide her disappointed oh in response. Though, naturally, that only made it sweeter when he added, “I held off until I’d hung up so you wouldn’t hear me.”

  “Fuck. Fuck, that’s hot. Oh my god, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “I’m glad. Because it felt fucking shitty at the time.”


  “Even though I practically begged you to do it?”

  “You probably wouldn’t have done if you’d seen how filthy I was about it.”

  She tried not to picture it the second he said that word.

  And failed, miserably. Her head was immediately full of him, on his back. Probably still in his clothes, but with his cock in his hand. Harsh strokes, she was sure, and then when he came, oh when he came—somehow she could just see him licking it from his fingers.

  Though she tried not to let that glorious image infect her words.

  “Pretty sure masturbation is always filthy.”

  “Not for me it isn’t. Never for me.”

  “So usually you do it primly.”

  He shook his head. “Usually I do it like I want to get it over with.”

  “You make it sound like some kind of necessary chore.”

  “That’s how I feel about it. That’s how I felt about it. It was always something I needed to do to relax or a thing I had to put aside to do my job right.”

  “And what exactly was it about your job that meant you had to put it aside?”

  “I couldn’t split my focus like that.” He paused, as if weighing whether he should add anymore. Then he seemed to say fuck it with just one eyebrow, and suddenly the rest came free. “Often, silence was a factor.”

  “I guess the last thing you want is the King of Prussia hearing you jerk off through the secret wall you’re hiding behind so you can assassinate him.”

  “Prussia isn’t a place anymore, and there are no secret walls.”

  “But the rest is true.”

  “If I say yes, will it scare you?”

  That fuck it eyebrow happened again.

  And this time, it was accompanied by something even better.

  He sort of half-slumped onto one elbow, as if this conversation was sucking him in.

  “No more than you forcing yourself not to masturbate,” she said.

  Then he just sank in deeper.

  “I never forced myself. I just saw desire as an inconvenience.”

  “But you didn’t feel that way after we talked.”

  “I don’t ever now. It’s different now.”

  “In what way?”

  He gave her a look. “I already told you.”