by Louisa Trent
Her suit weighed her down. Didn't he understand that? She felt as if she were drowning in clothing. Too many layers of fabric separated her from him. She wanted nothing to come between them. She wanted his hands on her skin. His mouth on her skin. His skin on her skin. She wanted to feel only him.
When five fingers cruised under her jacket, found her breast, stroked the nipple, she could have cheered, it felt so perfect.
"I've wanted to do this since I saw you prancing around in your wet tee-shirt. Do you have any idea what you did to me that night? How hot you were?"
"Nope, but thanks for telling me now that you're plastered. And why the past tense? Am I no longer hot?"
"Oh, you're hot. It's the suit that's not hot."
"I had a meeting to attend today," she said, explaining her bureaucratic look. "The suit can come off."
Drew took her up on the suggestion. Her boxy jacket dropped like lead to the floor under the weight of its outdated shoulder pads. Keeping up with current fashion trends was not one of her strongest traits.
"Better," he said. "Much better."
She couldn't agree more.
Both hands now moved on her breasts, circling them, cupping them, lifting them.
They were average breasts, not too big, not too small. The girls received the occasional whistle from construction workers, but that was fairly standard practice in the city and she usually shrugged off the wolf cries and the lip smacking. She certainly never took the notice personally. They were just breasts. Every woman had a pair.
Hers hurt, especially the nipples. She didn't pull away from the hurt. Eyes closed, she enjoyed the hurtful sensation, not denying she liked how his stroking fingers tightened her flesh to the threshold of pain. Difficult to tell pain from pleasure under Drew's touch, difficult not to feel a little complimented that Drew was showing interest in her breasts though he never had before.
Her breathing quickened as he pulled her blouse up, freeing the hem from the waistband of her skirt, her workday stress loosening with it.
"Yes." Her moan, hoarse and distraught, reverberated in her ears. She needed this. God, she needed this. Make me forget, Drew. Make all the rottenness go away.
Her blouse was discarded, joining the boxy jacket on the floor, and she gave herself over to Drew.
His mouth. Lord! His gorgeous mouth! Nuzzling her neck while his hands went everywhere at once, his bristly cheeks rubbing like sandpaper back and forth over the slippery polyester of her slip where her breasts rose round above the cups.
The rough friction felt good against her fabric-covered cleavage, better on her naked skin. She raked both hands through his thick blond hair as he nuzzled her, the moist heat of his mouth scorching her through the dual layers of slip and bra, the fall of his hair tickling her. Throat arched, she continued to comb his hair, so thick and heavy between her fingers, until all sense of reason was lost under the wonder of his mouth.
He scooped her breasts out from their respective cups, slip first, then bra, and was kissing her bared breasts deeply, one, then the other, before sucking on the tips.
Her nipples. Her engorged nipples. His mouth playfully tortured them. Never before had she been as conscious of her breasts as she was conscious of them now.
"Oh, Drew. Yes. Keep doing that. Ah, just like that. Don't ever stop." She moaned, unraveling, everything else but this falling away. She felt like a kid in a candy store, unable to decide which treat to sample first. With Drew, she was greedy to try them all, greedy to make each sweet swallow last. She'd waited so long for this! Why rush it now? She didn't want the sensations to swirl past her in only one color, no matter how vibrant that color might be. She wanted to discern each hue as a separate and unique entity, to enjoy it for what it was, each individual characteristic dissected and analyzed.
Drew was not of a similar frame of mind.
The slip was yanked to her waist, one of the slender shoulder ribbons ripping in transit. The bra was impatiently unhooked and tossed. And there was his sensual mouth pulling and drawing and gorging on her tender breasts, his teeth scraping back and forth across the nipples until she thought she would go out of her mind.
In complete abandonment, she melted against him, feeling only an overpowering loss when he raised his head, the night air playing across her wet and swollen nipples, cooling the rawness of her flesh but leaving the ache behind.
The sense of loss didn't last long. He didn't forsake her flesh for more than an instant, the ache of abandonment ending when he bit a reddened nipple.
Screaming in frenzied pleasure, knees giving way, she sank to the floor.
He followed her down, heavy, so heavy, on top of her.
So, this is how it will be, she thought. Mindless, rushed coupling on the hallway floor. Just another woman. Any woman. Any body. Any willing pair of thighs. A new conquest...
Maybe conquest wasn't an apt description. She was hardly putting up a battle to save her virtue. There was no question of willingness on her part. She was willing. Very willing.
"I can't wait," he said, the words slurred into the crook of her neck, a hand kneading her breasts as he mounted her there on the hallway floor. "I'm out of my head with wanting you. Fuck the new bed."
And that unpoetic and unpretty declaration, so fiercely spoken, made everything all right.
With her shoulders inelegantly braced on one side of the narrow hallway wall and her feet ungracefully braced against the other, illicit chills running up and down her body as though she'd come down with a fever, she moaned aloud, thrashing her head back and forth against the nicked and pitted plaster wall.
What he did to her! How he made her feel!
Evil man, he ignored her whimpers, as excitement without boundaries, without limits, taunted her from the near distance, just beyond her grasp, growing stronger with every sweep of his fingers, with every stroke of his mouth. Teeth bared, she stretched towards that pleasure like she would a brass ring on a merry-go-round. It was a nameless wonder, a spectacular firework display, a torment of surrender. And she did surrender, wholly surrender, her body undulating back and forth on the floor like a white flag, trapped between two walls, trapped within the limited scope of her own sexual experience. Wanting more. Needing more. Demanding more than he was giving her.
"Do you trust me?" he rasped between increasingly drawn-out kisses.
"Of course."
"I've been thinking about this all day. How it would be with you. To be your first. I want to make it good for you but it won't be good, can't be good for a woman the first time. I've got no experience with virgins. None. But I can't let that prick from your bitch-and-cry group do it. I want it to be me. Except I don't want to hurt you and I don't know how not to hurt you. I'm scared shitless. That's why I had the beers. Since you propositioned me, I haven't been able to eat or sleep," he confessed, his caresses heavy, his voice slow and deep, his big body a dead weight, crushing her on the floor.
He sounded so bereft! His sad little speech broke her apart like a champagne glass thrown to the floor at a wedding feast. And knowing he suffered the temporary change in their relationship, still it was bliss. Lying in Drew's arms on the hallway floor, tangled up in half-on, half-off clothes, listening to him voice his fears. Drew had made himself vulnerable to her. How could she not return the favor by doing the same?
"Oh Drew. I'm scared shitless too. But not about this."
But how naïve she'd been! She couldn't pick apart the fibers of making love because it was more than just a physical act. It was caring and sharing and closeness and this terrible letting go of self. It was vulnerability in the face of pleasure. Pleasure in the face of vulnerability. The individual colors didn't matter; with Drew, the whole spectrum of hues came into play, some a flaming vibrant intensity, some a hushed palette of pastels. And it was beautiful, all of it. Not perfect. Not a romantic interlude. But magnificent, all the same.
To save time--she had to have him inside her n-o-w--she reached up under her skirt
and yanked at her panties, the fragile panel seam tearing in the process.
For joy! She now owned a pair of crotchless panties.
Giggling, she opened her mouth to tell Drew she had begun to dress for sex only to discover that his breathing had deepened, turned rhythmic.
She shook him. "Drew?"
He answered with a snore.
CHAPTER TEN
Forget the ball cap today, Drew thought with a moan. It would never fit. Overnight his head had grown to twice its normal size and had developed a strange knocking noise, sort of like a little person with a hammer had crawled in through an ear.
Ignoring the pounding in his head, Drew cocked one bleary eyeball in the general direction of his feet. Experimentally, he tried to resettle his ankles, tried to wiggle his toes, tried to shift his heels. In deep confusion, he contemplated his size twelves. How come with all that expended effort his loafers weren't moving?
Uh-oh. He couldn't feel his feet! Someone--maybe the midget in his head with the hammer--had snuck into his apartment during the night and stuffed his loafers with someone else's feet. These dead feet weren't his feet.
"What the hell?" he said trying to shuffle his legs from their present pretzel-twist into something that resembled straight.
He failed.
Couldn't feel his feet, couldn't feel his legs either.
Curling at the waist, he slapped both good and hard.
Good. He felt that.
In his pounding skull.
Dead feet, pretzel-twisted legs, an inflated balloon for a head--didn't matter shit. He had to get up. His bladder--whoa yeah, that he could feel--told him he had to take a leak. After making like a racehorse, he'd grab a shower and dress. Maybe locate his brain stem...
He kept slapping his legs and feet until fire ants ran a race under his skin.
When the ants morphed to sharp pins and needles stabbing at his flesh from knee to ankle, Drew straightened his spine, lumbering to sitting on the floor.
He wasn't feeling so good.
"Crap!" he grumbled unintelligibly, his steel-wool scratchy tongue having a hard time forming the word.
His head begged to be taken off his shoulders and placed in a nice, soft, padded cell--but still, into that swollen brain seeped the sinking realization that he had been a real bad boy the night before. What the hell had he done?
Had to involve a woman.
Whoever she was, she was long gone now. The apartment had the usual vacant feeling, like nobody lived there, including him.
Drew rubbed both hands over his cheeks in a washing motion, and nearly lost blood. He needed a shave.
He sniffed.
The lingering aroma of stupidity clung to his clothes and skin.
A vague sense of irresponsibility settled over him. No matter how hard he tried to chuck the feeling, it wrapped around him like a coarse blanket. Or a hair shirt.
It wasn't like him to pick up a woman when he was home. He never did the one-night stand routine in Boston. Never. Why last night?
Sure, he was half insane over the possibility of losing Kes. Sure, booze on top of no sleep on top of no food on top of desperation could do strange things to a man's reasoning abilities. But that didn't excuse him from getting on top of a woman and behaving like a jerk.
Speaking of which, why hadn't he just jerked off? Whenever he felt the call of the wild he always jacked the monkey rather than bring some bimbo back with him to his apartment. For crying out loud. Kesley lived right upstairs.
It wasn't until Drew had hauled his sorry ass upright that he spied what he'd used for a pillow.
Underpants.
White cotton underpants.
The modest type women he fucked never wore.
Like the white slip of cotton was a grenade rigged to explode, he bent and touched the panties.
Roses.
And Kesley.
The subtle fragrances drifted up into his nose, soothing his aching brain.
Not satisfied to inhale her scent from a distance, he buried his face in the white slip of cotton. Oh, man...
A deep, dark, pained rumble started at the rear of his throat and worked its way to his mouth where it exited on a sobbed "No!"
The torn crotch on the panties confirmed his worst nightmare, a truth his mind balked at accepting. Kes was the woman he'd been with last night.
And he'd been rough. Rough sex. With a virgin. She must have been terrified.
No! Get the facts straight, asshole! He must have terrified her.
He remembered stooping to take her soft lips. He remembered the need to take care...
Drew wiped a shaky hand over his mouth. How careful could he have been if he'd ripped her underwear?
Unable to wait, unable to stem the urgency, he recalled moving in on her, backing her up against the hallway wall.
She slid to the floor. After too many seasons of holding back the reservoir, the floodgate inside him burst, desire rushing over him with the force of rapids pent up for too long. He couldn't hold back the overflow, couldn't temper the lust flood. With his much larger body, he'd pinned tiny, narrow-hipped Kes down. He must have crushed her, hurt her.
Raped her.
Christ!
Gritty eyes narrowed, guilt haunting him, he voiced the question in his mind: Had he taken care of her? Had he at least worn a condom during the assault?
He quickly checked the floor.
No discards.
And in the shape he was in, he could never have made it to the trash.
Shit!
Fighting the cowardly urge to step back from what had happened, to protect himself as he obviously had not protected her, to walk away and leave it alone, he forced himself to remember, to own up to what he had done.
Without thought to her safety or virginity, he had put it to Kesley.
There had been women. Plenty of women. And every one of them had been in it for a good time, same as him. He never took advantage, never made himself out to be something he was not; all the women understood he wouldn't be spending the night, wasn't looking for serious. Fun and laughs, that's all he was in it for.
He didn't recall any fun and laughs last night.
Afterthoughts started seeping into his dull brain. Round breasts. A soft and giving mouth. An achy sigh. A throaty cry. Last night, he might have been out-of-his-head crazy, but not so crazy that he hadn't understood that sex with Kes would be different. Special. Mysterious. Unknown. Sweet. Innocent.
And he had stamped all over the wonder and beauty of her.
A cold slick of sweat covered Drew's body. Fear coiled in his belly ready to strike.
Kesley!
He had to find Kes. Had to explain. Apologize. Grovel. Beg for forgiveness. Cut off his dick and hand it to her. He wouldn't need it anymore, not after doing what he'd done.
But the whole time he heaved accusations at himself, the whole time he told himself he was lower than dirt, the whole time he vowed never to go near her again, a small voice inside his head was gaining in strength. That small voice said maybe if he threw himself on her mercy she might give him a second chance, and if she did give him a second chance, this time he swore he'd do it right. And if he had made her pregnant ... if he found out she carried his baby inside her belly...
Remorse slipped away and his face twitched into a prideful smile.
If he'd made Kes pregnant, he'd marry her and spend the rest of his life doing everything he could to make last night up to her.
Outside the third-floor flat, he hammered on the door, hollered her name through the keyhole. He did not turn the knob and walk in like he always did. Things had changed between them.
When Kes called out a fancy French "Entrez," he entered her apartment like a visitor, cognizant he had forfeited the former privilege he'd enjoyed of coming and going as he pleased.
He found the woman he'd wronged in the kitchen, banging pots and pans around. If she picked up a frying pan and aimed, he wouldn't duck. After what he'd done,
the least of what he deserved was a cast iron skillet clobbering.
Drew was about to fall to his knees at Kesley's feet, forehead pressed to the floor, when she said, "Pull up a chair."
Nearly catatonic with misery, he collapsed into the nearest one. "I'm so sorry," he said straight away.
"You should be." No beating around the bush with Kesley.
"I am, sweetheart. I truly am."
"Oh, well. These things occur from time to time," she said magnanimously. "Or so I'm told. Now what would you like for breakfast? Hair of the dog?" She chuckled.
He couldn't believe she was letting him off the hook so easily. Why was she moving on, letting it go? The least she could do was pop him one. A black eye would make him feel a shitload better. And Drew knew Kes could do it too; she could wipe the floor with him. He'd seen her in action once down at The Shelter when she was dressing down a young druggie for not keeping his medical appointment. Drew remembered trembling in his loafers just listening. The kid had been doing some shaking too. And Drew could tell the lad was one tough hombre. But her caring must have gotten through to the kid because the six-foot-four teen apologized and agreed to "work through his issues."
Forgiveness. That's why she didn't flatten him.
Maybe Kes could forgive him, but he would never forgive himself.
"Drinking is no excuse," he said contritely, not letting himself off the hook.
"My understanding is that it is. And why the knock this morning?"
"Considering last night, I thought a knock was called for."
"I'm over it already. It's not like it's the end of the world. So I'm disappointed." Her shoulders lifted into a hug. "Limp happens."
"Limp? Who was limp?" He paused, considered. "I was limp?"
"Guess so."
"What do you mean 'Guess so?' Believe me, there's never any question. Erect, I'm an impressive sight."
"If you say so. Then again, you were too intoxicated to unzip, so I never got a gander at the goods. And by the way, you do snore."
