“Oh God,” she whispered, clutching convulsively at either side of the pillow. “Oh God, Glenn…”
He drew back, sliding his hand between them to close it over her pussy. His long, elegant finger touched her clitoris, and she fell.
She reached for him with both arms, her hands opening and closing with her desperate need to hold him as she shattered in joy. Glenn twisted inside her, groaning, and shoved in once more, hard, falling into her clutching arms, seizing her mouth. The heat of his semen flooded her, along with all the other sensations tearing her apart. They writhed and undulated together, with no control left, their cries muffled in each other’s gasping, panting mouths.
When she came to her senses, his face was buried in her hair and he was softly kissing her ear.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “Sorry.”
“For what?” she asked thickly.
“Being rough and quick.”
She smiled, turning her face into his neck and inhaling the warm scent of his skin. “You weren’t rough. And I think I needed quick as much as you obviously did.”
He raised his head slowly, gazing down into her face. He lay heavy and unmoving between her legs, as if completely drained; and yet she could feel him still hard inside her.
“Then you wouldn’t object if I did it again? A little differently this time—slow and easy…” As he spoke, he moved within her just a little, sending aftershocks coursing through her with enough force to make her gasp.
“You can keep doing that for as long as you like,” she said fervently.
“Don’t say such things to a man who’s been celibate for ten years.”
“You’ve been free for at least six months,” Izzy pointed out. “I’ve seen the way women look at you. You could have got laid any number of times. Outside of Ardknocken, at least.”
Instead of answering, he drew her knee up on one side of him and twisted to find the angle he wanted. His cock found the spot that made her melt, and stroked over and over with every lazy movement of his body.
She closed her eyes and ran her hands over the hard muscle of his arms and shoulders.
He said, “Sometimes a fuck is only a fuck. I didn’t want that. I’d already dreamed of you.”
Chapter Ten
As soon as the words were out, he wanted to swallow them back. Not because they weren’t true, but because he didn’t want to freak her or pressure her. Or leave himself vulnerable, or even committed to a false idea conjured by the stupid dreams he’d been trying all his life not to believe in. He just wanted the present, this girl in his arms, not some more complicated scenario.
It was instinct as well as convenience to distract both of them with sex, and so he began to thrust into her again with more serious intent. She cooperated, moving with him, sucking the skin of his shoulder and softly biting. It drove the pleasure-lust straight to his already eager cock.
She said, “Are you saying I’m special, Glenn Brody?”
“Yes,” he said, because he couldn’t lie and didn’t want to.
She touched his hair, stroked his face. “I’m flattered.”
He smiled and kept his rhythm slow and steady. “No, you’re not. No one’s flattered to be fucked by an ex-con.”
Fresh heat flushed through her, darkening her skin deliciously. He didn’t know if it was his words or what he was doing to her, but he loved the effect. His effect. And she didn’t even pretend anger.
“Made love to,” she said breathlessly, “by an ex-con who thinks I’m special.”
He kissed her inviting mouth, aware of a strange ache spreading through him with the sexual pleasure. It seemed to make every sensation stronger, more intense. When he came up for air, she pushed him, rolling him over so that she could lie on him, grinding her clitoris against him. Then she sat up, straddling him, and lifted herself up and down his shaft with slow, sensual bliss.
A clouded smile suffused her flushed face. “Who’s fucking who now?”
“Making love,” he corrected, pushing up into her and shuddering when her muscles clung and stroked him on his way back out. “And I think we’re both guilty.”
He ran his hands up over her smooth thighs to her hips and her waist, spanning her between his hands before caressing upward and over her breasts. He drew her nipples between his forefinger and thumb, over and over, and her eyes closed in clear bliss.
She began to gyrate as if spinning a hula hoop on her waist, and his whole body shuddered.
“Fuck,” he said fervently, since they’d both now used the word and it seemed the most natural exclamation in the circumstances. “This is so worth those ten years…” Experimenting, he gyrated too, soaking up her gasps and moans like manna. He wanted to give her every ounce of pleasure of which her gorgeous little body was capable. He wanted to make her come harder than she ever had in her life, for him, for him…
He pushed himself up into a sitting position, wrapping his arms around her, thrusting into her with a sweet, steady rhythm.
She kissed his shoulder, caressing his back and his biceps, undulating with him. “This,” she said shakily, “is the sexiest game of rocky-boats I’ve ever played.”
“It has a spectacular finale.”
“Oh, I hoped you’d say that.” She wound her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth.
It was tempting, so tempting then to let go, to hammer her as he had the first time to wild, blissful completion. But the first time he’d had little choice. It was a miracle he’d lasted as long as he had. This time he’d promised her more, and he intended to enjoy the fruits of that promise to the full. And so he kept it slow, even when she grew anxious and desperate with need. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead and upper lip. He kissed them off, tasting her, enjoying the idea of tasting all of her. There was so much he wanted to do to her, with her, and they had all night.
The journey was sweet and tender and, for him, at least, unique. He loved the dark passion churning in her eyes, her instant, eager response to his every touch. He loved her every caress, every movement as they rose inevitably toward climax.
At the end, of course, it wasn’t steady at all. Because he watched her come in his arms, and his body reacted without permission to the convulsing of hers, pushing hard until he emptied himself inside her with the wild, intense ecstasy of release.
Afterwards, she curled into his shoulder, his arm around her, smiling sleepily. And he found another wonder in the fact that she was still here.
“What was it like?”
He’d thought she was asleep, but her words broke into his fading consciousness to prove him wrong.
“In prison,” she added, by way of explanation.
As questions could have gone, this one could have been worse. Although he was pretty sure these would come too now.
“I’m not going back,” he said. He didn’t want to talk about it or even think about it.
She nodded as if that was a given. “Did you—get hurt in there?”
He shifted uncomfortably. If he hadn’t been woozy with sex, he probably wouldn’t have answered at all. “Not so much. I went in with a reputation, and I made sure I kept it. Survival technique.”
“More than survival. Chrissy said you came out with a degree in music.”
“Aye, it’s like joining the army—you learn new skills.”
She propped her chin on his shoulder to look into his face. “Like sounding as blasé about the good as the bad?”
“Oh no, that’s an old skill I learned long before they banged me up.”
She was silent for so long, he turned his head to look into her face and found her watching him with a faint frown that might have been bewilderment.
“Did you really do those things?” she asked at last.
“What, assault and murder and dealing? Oh yes.”
“Why?”
&nbs
p; From her perspective, it was a good question. Even from his, now he had the space to think about it dispassionately, it wasn’t so stupid. “I just sort of fell into it. At the time, I didn’t seem to have any choice, but of course I did. I just didn’t know it.”
“Peer pressure?”
He let his mouth twist into a smile. “If only. It was parental pressure did for me.”
Her frown deepened. “You were rebelling?” she tried. She would do. She’d come from a good family with decent morals. You knew that without asking.
“No, I was conforming,” he said shortly. “My dad was something of a crime boss in Glasgow. You could say he brought his work home with him. I thought it was just life. I thought you hit to get things done.” He shrugged. “It worked. But then one day I realized what I really wanted to get done was to stop my dad hitting her. Me.”
She could have missed his slip. She didn’t. “You and your mother?” she said.
There was no overt sympathy in her eyes, nor any of the clinical understanding he got from therapists. So he just nodded. “Guess how I stopped that?”
“You hit him back?”
He nodded. “Too late for my mum. She had brain damage and went into a home.”
“And your dad?”
“For the first time, I had his respect, even his fear. He promoted me within the organization, made it clear I was the chip off his old block and would be his partner and successor one day.” He stopped, struck suddenly with the impossibility of saying the rest to her. “I got worse and got caught, and wised up at Her Majesty’s pleasure.”
But her gaze didn’t release his. Instead, she searched his eyes until he looked away. “Shit, Izzy, I’m not proud—”
“Your father’s respect made everything worse,” she said unexpectedly. “It made what you were doing worse. Not you. You hated his respect, because that wasn’t what you wanted either. You wanted him to be different.”
His throat tightened, and he closed his eyes. “I wanted the world to be different. I wanted to be different, and I wasn’t. I was in too deep to stop without getting killed. So when I was set up by the rival bams—nutters, gangsters, whatever you want to call them—”
“I grew up in Glasgow too,” she interrupted. “I know what a bam is.” She brought both hands onto his chest to prop her chin on, staring at him. “They set you up? You didn’t do it?”
“I took the fall,” Glenn said tiredly. “I made the first sensible decision of my life, and I went to prison and learned among the people I understood.”
“But you didn’t do it!” she exclaimed.
“I didn’t do that,” Glenn said impatiently. “I didn’t kill Tommy Grant. But there was plenty I did do. I wouldn’t risk suing.” He moved suddenly, because he couldn’t bear it, because he was afraid after all these years that he might actually cry like a baby. “Can we stop talking about this now?” he asked, rolling her onto her back and entering her in one unexpectedly smooth movement. She was still wet with his semen, and, surely, with her own renewed lust. The knowledge turned him on even more.
Not quite laughing, she said breathlessly, “Are you planning on making up for those ten years in one single night?”
“I’m prepared to give it a bloody good try,” he said, flicking his tongue over her breast. “Come on, Izzy, one more for me…”
When she woke, the bedside lights were off and the pale grey light of dawn was seeping through the curtains. After the third time, Izzy had fallen asleep in Glenn’s arms, her limbs still entangled with his. Now, no warm body hugged her close. She couldn’t hear him breathing.
She turned over slowly, giving herself time to deal with the disappointment of an empty bed.
“Hello,” Glenn said. His bent elbow dug into the pillow, propping up the hand on which his cheek rested. The quilt had dropped to his waist, leaving his naked chest desirably visible.
She smiled. “I was afraid you’d gone.”
“I thought about it,” he admitted. “But I wanted to find out if you’d look at me the same way in the cold light of day.”
“What way?” she teased.
“A bit like that.” He reached up and brushed the tumbled hair from her face. “And now I’ve seen it, I can go.”
Afraid he would, she caught his wrist in both hands. “You speak like a man with alternatives.”
He shrugged. “I presume your original plan was to go back to Ardknocken with Whatshisname.”
“Harry, yes. I need to get back to Jack.”
“You can do that, though I suspect Whatshis—Harry—has a bit of a hangover. Or you could come back with me.”
“And the others?” She wasn’t sure she was ready for the inevitable ribald comments and knowing looks. God, they’d be unbearably pleased with themselves, having spiked poor Harry’s drink and imagined they’d thrown her and Glenn together.
“Chrissy will bring the rest in the van. I need to get back this morning, so we already agreed I’d take the car.”
Izzy smiled. More time with him. Last night had turned the excited unease of anticipation which she’d used to associate with his company into undiluted pleasure. She sat up and threw off the quilt, sliding out of bed and padding across the room to find her overnight bag and her jeans.
“I didn’t mean right now,” Glenn said lazily. “I’m sure we’ve time for a bath and some coffee.”
Glenn was really too big to share a bath with. But it was curiously soothing to sit in the warm water between his powerful legs, her back against his broad chest and his semi-erect cock, while she washed his feet and hers. Glenn concentrated on her breasts, which had never seen so much soap.
By the time they slid under the water, at risk of flooding the bathroom, Izzy was thoroughly aroused and imagined him wrapping her in a towel and sweeping her back to bed in something of the style of Rhett Butler. But when he knelt in the water and lifted her in his arms, he didn’t put her farther away than the side of the bath, after which he deliberately parted her thighs and began to kiss his way up the inside of her leg until she knew what he meant to do.
Her breath caught. She shuddered at the first touch of his lips on her pussy, the first flick of his tongue to her clitoris. She buried her hands in his luxuriant brown hair and held on while he tasted her, caressing, licking, kissing until her whole body was on fire. A finger slid inside her, intensifying the pleasure inside as well as out. When a second finger joined it and he began to suck in a long, smooth stream, she inhaled sharply and came.
Convulsing, she slid back down into the water, and Glenn kissed her mouth instead. It was a sweet end to their night of lovemaking. Izzy half hoped to return the favour, but he made no move to either enter her body or coax a little oral sex. By the time her limbs would obey instruction again and she emerged from the bathroom to find him, he was fastening his jeans with one hand and pouring hot water onto instant coffee with the other.
When they eventually left the room, Izzy walked farther along the corridor to Harry’s door and tapped. “Harry, are you awake?” she called—praying guiltily that the answer was no. When she heard only silence, she breathed a sigh of cowardly relief and hurried back to Glenn, who was carrying her bag down to reception.
Although Harry had booked her room as part of his invitation, she paid her own bill before she left, which ate rather alarmingly into her financial reserves, then walked out into the autumn sunshine with Glenn Brody.
Well, she thought, slightly stunned by the cold fresh air, that was unexpected. And suddenly, she wanted to laugh.
As they drove along the sea front and headed north, Izzy texted Harry, Thanks for fun evening! Since you’re still asleep, have taken lift home. Paid my bill but not yours J. See you soon, Izzy. She felt that struck the right note: friendly but definitely nondependent. Distance maintained without quarrel or accusation. Although he might feel bad about getting
so smashed he had to go to bed early. Another twinge of guilt curled through her, but this wasn’t her crime, and the result, her night with Glenn, was too amazing for her to feel bad for long. Besides, she remembered, Harry was being an arse about her job at Ardknocken, as if her being a paid cleaner there would diminish her. Or him.
Next she texted Louise to say she was on her way and should be home within a couple of hours. Then she put the phone away in her bag and simply enjoyed the company and the scenery. She watched his big, scarred hand on the wheel, dropping to the gear lever, and remembered what it had done to her last night. And again this morning. Although it bore indelible signs of violence, she’d never been touched with such sensitivity, had never known such intense arousal or physical pleasure from a man’s hand. From a man.
He said, “What was it you were going to ask me?”
“When?” she asked, surprised.
“Last Monday. When I jumped you.”
She flushed, but last night had wiped away the silly unease and embarrassment, leaving only the sweet, sensual memory. And yes, maybe it was time to be honest.
“I came to ask you to keep the name Anna to yourself. I wasn’t sure I’d said how important that was. To me and Jack.”
He glanced at her, then back at the road. “What if I’d already blabbed it round the house?”
“I didn’t think you had. Everyone still called me Izzy. Everyone treated me the same. I wanted it to stay that way.”
“Why?”
“Because Jack and I are happy at Ardknocken. I don’t want to leave.” She looked out the front window at the road ahead, and the autumnal hills rising on one side. “I’m not being a drama queen. But to understand that, you have to know who my ex-husband is.”
“I do know who your ex-husband is.”
Her lips fell apart. There was nothing she could do about the sudden lurch of her heart or the surge of panic that kept her frozen and silent for several seconds. She’d been going to tell Glenn, because anything less than honesty was unthinkable now. But he knew. He knew. And if he knew…
In His Wildest Dreams Page 12