My hair was too short for him to twine it round his fingers like I did when my hands were in his hair, but I still flinched as if he’d pulled my head back, and he leaned over me to whisper, “Then I’d be able to kiss you, and no-one would hear the sounds you made because you’d be too busy kissing me back.”
“Fuck, you could…” I panted, counted to ten in my head to make myself hold off. The angle he was at now, the hand on the back of my neck, every shallow thrust made me want to cry out, and he hadn’t even touched me yet. I hadn’t touched myself. “You could make me…”
“Not yet.” There was laughter in his voice, and I hated him for it. I hated his smug self-control and the power he had over me. “I want you lying on your side.”
“Jesus, can’t you stay in one position for long? I just get used to one and—”
“Yeah, I know. That’s exactly why. I like to play around with you.”
I had to clench my jaw against a grunt of discomfort at the way he moved but somehow he stayed inside me. My torso hit the mattress, knocking the breath out of me and as soon as I managed to inhale again, Steven’s hand on my hip pulled me over. “Fuck, this is twisted,” I breathed, not trusting myself to attempt anything above a whisper. “You’ll break my spine.”
“What a way to go. Fucked to death by Steven Kenton.”
“I could think of worse—” Somehow I stifled the groan, setting my jaw against it, and it settled in my throat, attaching itself to my windpipe and swelling every so often like a ball of nerves.
“You mean you actually like this?” Steven asked, sliding his hand over my hipbone, rocking me back onto him. The curve of his hand perfectly moulded itself to the curve of my waist and I nearly begged him to touch my cock. “This?” But he did it himself and I whimpered, helpless. “I knew you would.” His hand tightened; my eyes watered. “Come on, Kit. Say something.”
“I…” Propping myself up on one elbow while he settled himself inside me, behind me, against me, took too much energy. I flopped back down again and the sudden movement jerked both of us, joined together as we were.
“God, Kit, you’ve got no idea what I…” Steven eased himself in deeper, and his hand on my cock tightened. “Since…I knew you’d…”
“What?” I didn’t and didn’t want to know what he was thinking. Asked anyway.
“Since my first day here. I wondered what you’d feel like.”
“And now you know,” I whispered. “But this isn’t the first time you’ve fucked me.”
“No.” He lowered himself, leaned in to my shoulder and kissed it lightly, in between breaths. “Feels like it though.”
Steven barely moved inside me but his hand tightened around my cock, sped up at exactly the right moments when I needed it to. One of my hands lifted away from grasping at the bedclothes but didn’t know where to come to rest. His hand? No—I might have disturbed him and he already had me right where he wanted me. His hip? Our limbs would become even more entangled than they were already. We’d have no room to move in this already-awkward position.
His breaths, desperate, shallow gasps for air, broke into my consciousness and somehow I reached back and got my fingers tangled in his curls to pull him closer. I couldn’t kiss him as comfortably as I usually would—Christ, we were like two interlocking pretzels, all arms and legs and perspiration and the way the palm of his hand moved along the underside of my cock nearly stopped my breath. Any time our lips made passing contact, his hips moving against my back shuddered them apart again.
“This has got to be the most awkward…” Every pause was a gasp for breath I prayed I’d remain able to keep silent.
“Worth it though.” Steven’s lips curved against my jaw and I felt him smile.
“Means…oh God, Kit, you’ll…”
“What?” But I knew. And couldn’t hold off. I just wanted to hear him say it before I lost it, myself.
“Gonna come. I can’t—”
“Then do it. Just. Fucking—” My orgasm, though it had been building, still managed to surprise me with its power to arch my spine and cut off my words. Steven’s last thrust inside me arrested his breath. He froze, still holding on to me and after a second his ability to breathe returned, shallow, near-hoarse and rapid.
“Fuck.” He dipped his head against the back of mine and the way his shoulders shook, anyone else might have thought he sobbed against my hair, but all I felt were hot breaths against my neck, not tears. “That was…”
“Yeah.” It was all I trusted myself to say. That, and a whispered, “It was,” in agreement with words he hadn’t yet uttered.
“No.” Tangled, sweaty curls tickled my shoulder as he shook his head. “I meant something else.”
The seriousness in his voice slowed my heart from its post-orgasmic tattoo right down to flatline status.
“That was the last time you ever turn your back on me.”
Chapter Eleven
Even saying it would have been possible to cut the atmosphere with a knife wasn’t a strong enough phrase. A flamethrower wouldn’t have been able to melt the ice in every glance Steven deigned to shoot my way, reminding me of that other cliché—if looks could kill.
It was only a cliché because it was in common use, and no less true for that.
I was almost glad that those looks came infrequently. Only when unavoidable. We’d pass on the stairs and he’d back up against the opposite wall like even brushing auras was abhorrent to him. The first couple of times it happened I opened my mouth to speak but ended up losing focus quicker than he dodged away and carried on doing whatever he was doing. There didn’t seem much point in trying to have a conversation with a man who acted like I was possessed of every disgusting trait the darkest recesses of his mind could bring itself to acknowledge.
I wanted to accuse him of being childish, but that most well-hidden part of me, my conscience, warned me off. A more hypocritical allegation would have been hard for me to make, given that I was seriously considering doing a hundred hours’ overtime in the office every week just to avoid coming home to the look on his face. He was avoiding me, I was avoiding him, and together we completely failed because we kept running into each other.
We did live in the same house, after all, and here we were.
Here we were. Exactly where I’d predicted we’d end up. Skin crawling with guilt and irritation every time we made the mistake of entering the same room and noticing there was only one fucking exit which the other always seemed to be blocking.
And no way out.
“I should never have got involved with you,” I blurted out one evening. Masochism, exhaustion and an angry fucking erection Steven would refuse to do anything about drew me into the kitchen five minutes after he’d announced an urge to make coffee and get the hell away from me.
I could have made my way upstairs and spent the few hours before bedtime making sweet love to my right hand, reacquainting myself with my Supernatural DVDs and planning a night out to find some fresh meat. Could have, but I liked to bottom, I liked to be fucked hard and I liked to make it hurt. Why not carry that through to everyday life as well, just to really twist the knife in my own guts?
Steven thudded the coffee mug down on the worktop.
“I mean—” I began, leaning against the kitchen doorframe, arms crossed in a typical I-mean-business pose my thundering heart failed to back up.
“Yes. “ Though his back was turned, I could tell he spoke through gritted teeth. “I know what you mean, thank you. You’ve already made it abundantly clear.”
“Hasn’t it all come about?” I asked, wanting him to admit it, wanting to be right more than I wanted to fix things.
As if they were even fixable.
Steven flinched, his head beginning to turn, but stopping before he looked over his shoulder. His instinct was to look at me but indignation kept his back turned.
“I knew it was a mistake fooling around with someone I lived with.”
“Far be it from you
to say you told me so, right?” he snapped.
“Am I wrong?”
Gripping the edge of the countertop with both hands shoulder-width apart, Steven hung his head and groaned.
“I said it would—”
“No.” He whipped around in a nanosecond and after crossing his arms and thinking again about such an aggressive stance, stood with hands on hips. “No, you’re not wrong. You were completely right and I should never have touched you. I apologise from the bottom of my cold, black heart and would do anything in my power to make you understand you’ve made your point. Don’t worry, Christopher.” His use of my full name sent chills through me, but it was nothing compared to the coolness in his voice, the way he didn’t cross his arms again. He didn’t need to be aggressive or standoffish or more hostile than he already was. The damage was done. We both knew it was completely fucked up. This idiotic excuse for a conversation was just drawing a line under it then scoring through a few times, blotting it out with Tipp-Ex, tearing up the page and burning the scraps to ashes.
All or nothing, Kit, remember? If there’s nothing left, let there be nothing.
“I get the message,” Steven said. “As much as I liked to think you enjoyed what I did to you, I get the message.”
“I did. I did, “ I said again, when his eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “Physically. It was…”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” He spoke gently and nodded softly, but it felt to me like the calm before the storm. Agreement before the insult. “I made the mistake of thinking you weren’t ashamed of me, but oh well. Live and learn.” He shrugged and turned back to whatever he’d been doing. Staring at the coffee jar and not making a hot drink, nor flicking the kettle on.
“Ashamed? I wasn’t ashamed—”
“Then perhaps you could tell me why you spent the best part of, oh, every moment since we fucked panicking over being discovered, or avoiding me?”
“Because it wouldn’t have looked—”
“Actually, I’d really rather you forget I asked that question. I don’t want to look as if I actually give a shit, do I?” Steven half-turned his head again, letting me see him in profile but no more. “I mean, you’ve already had enough opportunities to insult me, no need to overegg the pudding, eh?”
I wasn’t expecting the playful—no doubt forced—laugh, but he gave one all the same.
“Insult? I didn’t… I mean…”
“Let’s see, shall we?” Braver now, Steven turned, leant back against the countertop and mirrored my stance—arms crossed again. Ankles too. “I wanked you off; you were worried about Gary hearing. I sucked you off; you were worried about him and Gemma coming home early. I fucked you, you—”
“With him right across the hall? Of course I was worried he’d—”
“Oh, the worry was understandable.” He rolled his shoulders, either working out a kink or shrugging away the weight of my confusion. “What was the final nail in the coffin was the fact you couldn’t even bear to look at me.”
“Didn’t stop you fucking me, though, did it?”
Steven’s eyes widened momentarily. “No.” He bobbed his head in what could have been agreement but which looked more like resignation. “No, it didn’t. Thanks for the reminder. Oh, and I also appreciate your first words to me all evening being the wish that you’d never got involved with me. How anyone could be insulted by that I don’t know, but I guess I’m just one of those over-sensitive, queeny gay types. I really hadn’t got the message up to now what with you haring out of the room every time I get near you, or mysteriously finding shit to do outside the house for hours on end and really, it was a surprise to see you looming in the doorway and initiating a conversation tonight, if you can call it a conversation when someone mutters code for ‘I was willing to have you fuck me but don’t expect any acknowledgement, good manners, social graces or human decency’.” He groaned, shook his head. “I’m gonna stop there or I’ll start to sound like the kind of person I despise. You know. Whiners.” He turned his back again and spooned coffee into the mug, his every movement glacier-slow and weighted with resignation.
“Perhaps you could tell me why the backing-away every time we pass on the stairs? Avoiding even looking at me and when you do it’s like I’m the most repulsive creature on God’s Earth?”
“Not nice when that happens, is it?” he murmured.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Steven. If you want to accuse me of shutting down, fair enough, but at least enlighten me.”
“How many times?”
I pushed my weight off the doorframe and considered entering the room properly, but nerves kept me hovering at the threshold.
“The whole problem is…” He heaved in a breath and leaned on the worktop, supporting his weight on both hands again. “The problem is, I am sick of telling you what the problem is. Yes, I know you’ve had fucked-up relationships in the past, but we all have. That’s life. You’re supposed to learn from them, not blame every successive fuck buddy for not being whoever you wish they were.”
“I wish someone had told me that we were having a relationship, because I would’ve…”
“You would’ve?” Steven straightened and looked over his shoulder at me. “What? Treated me with a bit more respect? Acknowledged once in a while that you are, in fact, the biggest fucking douche I have ever met—”
“Hey, now, wait a minute—”
“And even being in the same room as you is turning me into the kind of person I would hate to listen to if I were in your shoes, so if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll forget the coffee and just go to bed.”
“Wait—” I hadn’t realised the kitchen was that small. In seconds he’d flipped off the kettle and crossed the room, heading for the doorway like he was just going to walk right through me.
Steven looked down at my hand on his shoulder and without moving his head again, lifted his gaze. I’d always had a weakness for men looking at me through their lashes and that weakness multiplied when it was him. “Yes?”
A pause, during which I discovered I’d completely lost the ability to speak. Touching Steven might have had something to do with it.
“You have something you’d like to say to me?”
“Don’t.” Oh, well done, Blackman. Monosyllabic and nonsensical. We are doing well today, aren’t we?
Thick black brows lifted and though it was aloofness that made his eyes shine, I wanted to pretend it was mischief. I wanted to pretend his very muscle tension wasn’t screaming get your hand off me. “Don’t? Well? Go on.”
“I meant, just don’t…”
Steven inhaled, held it as if he was going to speak, and let it go. That tension bled out of his muscles and I still didn’t take my hand away. “You don’t have anything to say at all, do you?” he finally asked, whispering.
I shook my head.
“You just couldn’t handle me telling you what a dick you are? Calling you out of being such a selfish, insular, anti-social, inept wanker?”
I cleared my throat. There was nothing I could say to any of that.
“And…” Steven stepped closer, not exactly trapping my arm between us, but making it slightly more difficult to break contact, as if I wanted to. “You don’t want me to turn the tables and be the one to back out now, do you? It really pisses you off that I walk out of the room, or avoid you on the stairs, or…oh…don’t creep into your room at night because I’m so desperate to get inside you anymore. Why? Shall I tell you why? Shall I articulate it for you, seeing as the great Christopher Blackman has been struck dumb?”
My fingers flinched against his T-shirt. Muscle-tight as always, doing nothing to hide either his shape or the heat of anger rising off his skin.
“Maybe you’re just not saying much because all the blood’s rushing to your cock, hmm? Oh, don’t think I can’t tell. You only ever notice me when you’re horny or pissed off at something. Both at the same time?” He shrugged, even deigned to smile, thou
gh only briefly.
“This’ll be why tonight’s the first time we’ve been in the same room for more than sixty consecutive seconds. Why you’re saying nothing. And why you’ve got a hard-on I just bet you’re wishing I’d do something about.”
Oh, sure, he smiled at me then, but it was smug. So—and I couldn’t believe I even contemplated the pun without laughing—so bloody cocksure he made my eyes water.
A tingle ran up the back of my neck, like all those times he’d made me shudder just looking at me from across the room, or when I got so horny thinking about him that my eyes rolled back in my head and I couldn’t hold my head up.
“See…”
Every time he spoke, his voice dropped still further and it was either a need to listen carefully, or a need to breathe him in, that pulled me closer.
“You’re used to being the one to walk out, or turn your back, or tell me to leave, or freak out. You have never, on any of the occasions we’ve been together, been able to stop yourself edging for the door or telling me to stop, or even thinking about how much this freaks you out and contemplating that your life would be so much simpler if I just. Wasn’t. In it.”
Mesmerised by the way his lips moved when he spoke, I had a hard job taking in the content of what he said, but I heard it. I listened. Somehow.
“So I’d really like it if you stepped aside and let me be the one to walk away for once,”
he murmured and my heart skipped.
Our torsos weren’t touching, but I still got scared he’d feel it, be able to tell somehow.
Then I figured, so fucking what if he did? He’d already called me out on everything true.
“No? So you’re really that passive? You’re not going to get out of my way, you’re not going to move or even make a move on me?”
I wet my lips with the tip of my tongue, only because they felt so dry, not because I was thinking of kissing him—which I totally wasn’t—and he smirked. Like he knew I totally was.
Stay the Night Page 12
