Forever Sheltered

by Deanna Roy

  Darion’s fingers slid up the bump of my knee, pushing my broomstick skirt out of the way. I kicked off my Mary Janes and let them fall to the floor.

  He made it up to the elastic band at the base of my thigh and ran his finger inside the edge. “I like these,” he said.

  “Everyone thinks I should give them up,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Be a grown-up.”

  He shrugged. “People want everyone to be like everybody else. I say just be you.”

  Cool air hit my skin as he tugged the stocking down. His fingers traced the indentations in my skin from the elastic. “I’ve always found it fascinating how skin is so easily altered, and how quickly it corrects itself.”

  I realized with no small panic that too many lights were on, and that my skin had not corrected itself at all on my wrists. The scars would be very visible. Time to get this show on another road.

  I dropped my legs to the floor. “Let me put the pizza away,” I said.

  He watched me get up and take the box and plates into the kitchen. Dang it, I should have planned better. I thought about the lighting. Maybe we should just go to the bedroom now.

  No, that seemed too fast. But if the sweater came off, and it was going to…crap.

  I flipped on the kitchen light. The box went into the fridge, and I dumped the plates in the sink. Now to just get the main light in the living room off. Without weirdness.

  I walked back toward Darion. “Let me get the light in here,” I said.

  His eyes followed me as I moved to the door and turned off the overhead. The room dimmed considerably, lit only by the distant light of the kitchen.

  I sat back on the sofa. “I assume you know your way around a body and don’t need surgical illumination.”

  He leaned toward me, his mouth on mine. He must have been holding back before, as he crushed me against him, pushing us both back on the sofa. His body was solid and muscled, braced above me. His lips took mine hungrily, the kiss deepening.

  I could barely catch my breath. One of his hands went beneath my head to pull me in more tightly. The other moved along my body, breast to hip, and beneath the sweater. I knew it made him crazy that I didn’t wear a bra. I kept pulling out my thickest sweaters so I could do it again.

  His palm reached a breast, and my hips pressed up against him. I could feel him erect between us. I wondered what sort of lover he would be, sensitive or passionate, slow or fast.

  He braced himself on one arm and pushed the sweater up over my belly. I had been right, this was the first to go. But the light was way too low for him to see the faint scars. I would tell him eventually, but not now, not yet. Normally I didn’t have to worry about it, one-and-done. But this was going to be different. It already was.

  He broke the kiss to pull the sweater over my head. I shivered for a second from the loss of warmth, and Darion pulled me against his body. His shirt was rough, the buttons pressing into my skin. He kissed along the curve of my neck and along my shoulder. I quit thinking about anything but his mouth and hands.

  He made his way down to that territory we covered in the surgical room, his lips surrounding a nipple and drawing it in.

  Blood pounded through me, sending waves of heat in its path. His tongue took its time learning every curve. One of his hands moved lower, pushing the skirt out of his way.

  His hand shifted my knee farther out, giving him access. My breathing sped up as he felt his way up a thigh and his fingertips brushed against the lace edge of my panties.

  I clutched at his head. He moved from one breast to the other, taking his time. He cupped me between the legs, holding me gently at first, then letting one finger slide against the folds, still covered by thin fabric.

  I writhed beneath him, wanting more, wanting it faster. He knew what did it for me after that time on the beach. But he was patient, slow, and only after long agonizing moments where I pressed up into his hand did he slip a finger inside my panties and into me.

  I could barely hang on. Despite our beach moment, it felt so long since I’d fallen into a hot encounter like this. Sometimes my exit strategy weighed on my mind before we were even done. But this time, I had none.

  Darion lifted his head and whispered against my cheek, “I think I sent you a message about this part.”

  He had. A very hot, very sexy text about the Courbet painting and what would happen when I struck that pose.

  His body shifted down, and the finger moved out of me to the edge of the panties and pulled them down my legs. My skirt was gathered in a bunch around my waist. I ran my hand through his hair as he made his way down.

  “I think I might have mentioned something like this.” His mouth landed on me, my knees on his shoulders, and now my neighbors were going to know who I was because I cried out without any control.

  Darion didn’t start slow, or take his time. Everything went into it, fingers, tongue, his lips. Pleasure crashed through me, blasting out like a dynamite strike. I clutched at the furry pink cushion, utterly lost, out of control. I couldn’t hold anything back even if I wanted to.

  He never hesitated, never slowed down, not waiting on my rhythm, but creating it, controlling my response.

  The sensations began to pulse, like a heartbeat, like breathing, and then it all let go, the orgasm blossoming out from my body, surrounding him, engulfing his mouth and hand.

  I relaxed against the sofa, the world spinning. Damn. Even if I had wanted to cut and run from him, I wasn’t sure certain parts of my body would have come with me. They already belonged to the doctor.

  He kissed his way back up my thigh, across my hip, and skipped the bunched-up skirt to find my belly. He gazed up at me, his eyes dark in the low light. “I love every sound you make,” he said.

  My face burned hot. I didn’t trust my voice yet to reply.

  He sat up on his knees and closed his grip on the waist of the skirt. “This is in the way,” he said, and yanked it down. He tossed it aside. He smoothed the one loose stocking back into place. “These can stay.” He nipped my skin just above the elastic band.

  His hand went back into me, and I was shocked to find that I still had so much need inside. Darion seemed to want to pillage me over and over again, his hands and mouth everywhere, never stopping, stroking, sucking. Little red marks bloomed across my belly as he made his way over my body.

  “I hope I don’t need a physical exam anytime soon,” I said.

  “Mmmm hmmm,” he said, landing low again. My head fell back. God, I was going crazy with it. This time he kept stopping each time I got close. My hands were worn out from clutching his shoulders.

  “Please,” I said.

  He grinned up at me with an expression I would never have imagined on his face. “Please what?”

  “Get naked.”

  “I live to serve,” he said.

  He loosened his cuffs and a few top buttons, then whipped his shirt over his head. The T-shirt beneath was tight and hugged his ribs and abs. I ran my hands along the warm cotton, then grabbed the bottom edge.

  “And this,” I said, yanking it up.

  I couldn’t reach all the way, so he pulled it off. His chest was hairless and toned. I fitted my thumbs in the indentations of his belly, my throat thick. He was damn beautiful.

  He unlatched his belt and slid it from the loops. I lay back to watch as he shucked his pants. A boxer boy, the fitted type. His shoes rolled away, and the black socks. Now it was just the navy underwear.

  I reached for him, sliding along his length, straightening him until he peeked out the top. I couldn’t wait anymore and grasped at the waistband and jerked them down. He sprang at me, powerful and long.

  Darion kicked the boxers away. “We really are going to break in the Pink Monster, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” I said, reaching out for him again. “Yes, we are.”

  He braced himself over me, and I got hold of him, grasping at the base and sliding my fingers to the end. He sucked in a breath,
his eyes closed, and I kept working it, rearranging myself beneath him so my stocking-covered knees were outside his legs. I wasn’t letting him get away this time.

  His face dropped to my neck, burying itself there. I worked him until I felt a tremor in his arm. “My turn to say please,” he said into my ear.

  “Condom?” I asked. I’d been on the shot forever, plus I had an IUD. I had no intention of accidentally getting pregnant ever again. But still, no use taking a risk for anything else.

  He nodded against my shoulder and reached for the discarded pants. I kept my hands on him while he fumbled with his wallet and tore open the package.

  “I’ll do the honors,” I said, and took it from him.

  He groaned a little as I touched the circle to the tip and slowly rolled it down his length. He was trim but not bare at the base.

  Darion didn’t dive in immediately, but reached between us. “I have been thinking about this for weeks,” he said.

  “Weeks? Since that first time you asked to see me?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you never came back.”

  He stilled a moment. “I had to leave town suddenly,” he said. “I had no way to contact you.”

  “It was fine.” We shouldn’t have this conversation now. “Come here.” I grabbed his bulging shoulders and brought him down closer. “Show me how sorry you are for standing me up.”

  He plunged in then, and I nearly screamed. God, it had been forever. He split me wide open, and I couldn’t do anything but hang on as he set the speed and rhythm. His breath puffed against my neck as he worked. I locked my ankles around his back. After a moment he sat up and brought me with him. I straddled him, sitting high, and he held my waist to assist as I moved up and down.

  I felt dizzy, lost, like I wasn’t sure which direction was up or down. I held on to his shoulders, letting everything course through me, the splintering pleasure rising up, the burn in my thighs, the ache in my belly from need.

  He slowed me down, letting each stroke get long and deep. I cycled against him, clutching his head against my chest. I could do this forever, truly forever.

  But he reached between us to work that little nub. And I found that I needed to move, to pick up the tempo, to work it again. My legs were on fire, and I must have quivered, because Darion knew, and dropped me back on the sofa again.

  His finger never left me, and now his strokes were powerful and fast. I couldn’t keep up with him and just let him take over, let him take me. I could hear us both, his groans, my faint gasps. I could feel the keen edge he balanced on, and so I just let go, stopped trying to control myself, and the second orgasm blasted out with more intensity than the first.

  My ears were ringing with my own cries when Darion grasped my hips and pulsed against me, letting out one elongated groan.

  I could barely breathe, my chest heaving. I wanted to cry, feeling so damn emotional. I tried to remind myself that this was just an act, just sex, but something had come over me. I couldn’t rein anything in, I couldn’t laugh it off or coat it with disdain. All the things that let me blow the guy off at the end were well out of reach, carried off in the tidal wave.

  Normally I would push the guy away, throw on my clothes, and leave, never returning another call.

  But we were here, at my place, and I didn’t want him to go.

  Even if we only ever did this one, I was far from done.

  Chapter 32: Darion

  Something hard-core was going through Tina’s mind. Even in the low light coming in from the kitchen, I could see that her eyebrows were pressed toward each other. She seemed pained.

  “Are you all right?” I asked gently. “Does anything hurt?”

  She opened her eyes, baring just a flash of vulnerability, then she laughed. “You are such a doctor. No, nothing hurts.”

  I dragged her against me. We were still pressed tightly together. I had spent the last hour worrying about crushing her. Sometimes I swore she was nothing more than feathers and vellum paper, so light and delicate.

  But tough. Tina was a set of extremes I’d never seen in a woman.

  “You’ll want to get that,” she said, looking between us. “Let me find a box of tissues or something.”

  She slid out from under me, her body pale and gleaming above the stockings. Now that would be something to paint. She had hidden my earlier work in the art closet, but I could start another one. Her lithe little body, the striped legs. I stirred again just thinking about it.

  I didn’t know what she would want now, for me to leave or stay. I needed to check on Cynthia, but I had to be careful about logging in with Tina so close. And to go to my place. Damn, my mind was already buzzing. I didn’t want that. I just wanted to be right here.

  Tina returned and passed me a box. I crushed the condom in a tissue and reached for her. “Come here,” I said.

  She sat beside me, but I pulled her onto my lap again. I wanted to keep touching her. I could not get enough. “Let’s just be for a while,” I said.

  She nodded.

  I pulled her down on the fuzzy sofa, facing me, and I cradled her against my chest. She tucked one knee between my legs, and I held fast to her. Her heart hammered, a little fast. This was good. She was engaged with me. I had this fear that she would kick me out, that she would be unaffected and want me gone.

  But her own pulmonary response gave her away. I ran light fingertips along her neck and up around the base of those pigtails. Such a girl-woman. She built this whole way of protecting herself, but it couldn’t last. She felt things too deeply. I would take care with her.

  We stayed like this for a long time. She slept a little, and I listened to the sounds of her apartment. A faint drip of a faucet. Doors slamming in other apartments. Cars coming and going in the lot.

  I wanted to memorize her. I couldn’t stop looking. When she woke a little while later, I ran my hand along every curve I could reach, gently. I wanted her again, but I wouldn’t push for it, just wait and see.

  “These are probably hindering circulation,” I said, tugging at the elastic of her stocking.

  “You’re talking sexy again, doc,” she said.

  “Do you sleep in them?”

  “Not usually.”

  So, I pushed one, then the other, over her knees. They got loose, and I tugged them down. “Now I get to see the rest of you,” I said.

  “Are you one of those puritans who gets hot for ankles?”

  I trailed my fingers across the bump of her ankle bone. “I do for yours.”

  Maybe I would press. I was rock hard now. I shifted so she could feel it against her belly.

  Her eyes got wide. “I can work with that,” she said. “Too bad there isn’t a gurney close by. That one thing you were doing when I was sitting —”

  I couldn’t take any more and silenced her with a kiss. I nudged her knees apart with my thigh. She seemed fairly flexible, so I lifted her leg and locked her ankle on my shoulder.

  Now I had all the access I wanted. I thumbed her little nub, and her breathing immediately sped up. God, I loved her reactions to this. Two fingers in, her body warm and wet and ready, and she was making these little gasping noises again.

  I could not get enough of her. I keyed her up, working until she moved with me, until she clutched my arms.

  I felt around for my wallet. I’d better buy more condoms. Thank goodness I had two. I wasted no time on this round, lifting her onto me as I sat on the sofa, back to the cushions. She reached on either side of me to hold on to the sofa, her pert little breasts right against my face.

  She slid over me easily, and I clasped her hips, driving up into her until she cried out. I worked her hard and fast until I could tell she was close. I made sure she had solid contact with me and grinded against her until she began to tighten against me.

  Then I unleashed, controlling the strokes, holding her in just the right place as it all let go, tight, then loose, relaxing, coming down. She shuddered against me and rested her
forehead on my shoulder.

  Damn, this girl had gotten under my skin. I no more finished one round when I was already thinking about the next.

  I knew she had to be tired. It was late. I scooted forward on the sofa and brought her legs around my waist. She weighed next to nothing, so I was able to stand up with her on me.

  I held on to her back and walked down a hall that I assumed led to her bedroom. It was seriously dark back here, but I spotted the illuminated numbers of an alarm clock and headed for them.

  I could make out a pillow, then the bed.

  I bent over, laying Tina down on it. As much as I wanted to curl in next to her, I knew I couldn’t. I needed to log in at the hospital, check Cynthia’s last vitals. Pick up clothes at my apartment. Shower.

  Life. Work. So much getting in the way.

  “I’ll stop by the art room tomorrow, okay?” I said.

  “It’s Saturday, doc. We’re off.”

  “Not for residents. I have to do a pediatric run.”

  “Kiss Cynthia for me.”

  “I will.” I squeezed her hand and let go.

  Back in the living room, I got dressed and found a trash can for the tissues. The kitchen was bright and lit up, mostly empty. On the wall was a small framed photograph in black and white. I walked up to it. A premature baby, less than twenty weeks’ gestation by the look of it, photographed against a white sweater.

  This must have been Tina’s. I thought for a moment about watching Cynthia slip away and realized, Tina has already lived through it.

  I was never going to be as strong as her.

  Chapter 33: Tina

  I woke up to soreness in all the right places. I peeked under the sheet. Yep, still naked. I vaguely remembered the good doctor tucking me into bed.

  I pulled the covers to my chin. Whoa. I should have added more doctors to my list. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be scouting around for one-and-dones for a while.

  Had I really just thought that?

  I sat up and peered at the numbers on the clock. Good God. Morning was half over. Darion had probably already seen a dozen patients, saved three people, and cured some obscure disease. AND painted a picture.