It was the ‘please’ that did it. I could see the way his expression softened and he became the Nathan who would do anything for me. He stopped teasing me then and lowered his head between my legs. There was no hesitation, no need for me to beg, there was only sensation – his tongue dipping inside of me, his fingers sliding into me. He wet my clit with my own moisture, then licked it away. I cried out, gripping the edge of the counter and draping my legs over his shoulders. I dug my heels into his back, urging him on, afraid he would stop. He didn’t.
Whatever had happened between us in the past, Nathan still knew what I liked. What I needed. He held me open before him, like a feast for his pleasure alone, and then he ate me like a starving man. We both were starving. It had been so long, too long. I couldn’t even remember the last time, but there had never been a time quite like this. I clung to the counter and to him, feeling my orgasm building low in my belly. Muscles taut, body aching with the need for release, I didn’t think about anything but the feeling of Nathan’s tongue on my clit as I sat there bare-assed naked on the kitchen counter that didn’t even belong to me any more. And that thought – that wholly inappropriate, completely naughty thought – was what sent me careening over the edge.
I screamed, open-mouthed, uninhibited, raw with the need to vocalise what I was feeling. Holding Nathan between my plump thighs, riding his mouth in an effort to prolong my pleasure, I spiralled down into that blissful state of utter sensation where nothing mattered at all. I cried out my passion, my need, my frustration. My sadness. I pushed my hips against Nathan’s open mouth as he devoured everything I had to give. I slid around on the counter, its surface slick with the proof of my arousal.
I was still crying when he tugged me forward, over the edge of the counter and onto his cock. I was still coming, my pussy still contracting as he slid into me, knees bent, and pressed me against the counter, filling the emptiness inside me in a way that no finger or toy ever could. I hadn’t realised how badly I had missed him – or how much I wanted him – until he was buried inside me, staring into my eyes as he thrust into me, hard and fast. His jaw was clenched, a vein pulsing at his temple as he struggled to maintain control. I felt a surge of feminine power at knowing he was as needy as I was.
I was standing on my toes, my calves quivering with the effort to hold steady under the onslaught of his thrusts. He hooked his hand under my thigh and draped it over his hip, and we both groaned as the angle made my pussy narrow around him and brought my clit up tight against his pubic bone. In the aftermath of my orgasm his cock felt huge and every thrust sent little aftershocks of desire pulsing through me. He still wore his jeans, had tugged them down just far enough to free his thick erection, and the open zipper scraped against my slick, sensitive skin while the sharp edge of the counter dug into my back. I didn’t care. Pleasure with a side of pain, I thought fuzzily. It was entirely worth it just to hear him grunt my name.
I could feel his cock swell and twitch inside me and I clung to him, hands fisted in the fabric of his T-shirt, my leg wrapped high on his hip and holding him close. I nipped at the taut corded muscle in his neck, hard enough to hurt, which made him jerk against me. He went still and quiet, only his ragged breath and racing pulse letting me know how hard he was coming.
We stood like that for an endless moment, holding tight to each other, unwilling to move away and lose contact. Finally, he pulled back just far enough to look at me. Crow’s feet framed his laughing blue eyes and silver strands sparkled in the tousled chocolate-brown of his hair. Had it really been thirty years?
‘Rachel. I love you, Rachel.’
Staring into his eyes I had the sense that time had melted away. Suddenly, we were standing there the day we’d moved into the house, when we had a four-year-old and I was pregnant with our second, but didn’t know it yet. We’d scrimped and saved for a down payment on our dream house and finally it was ours. It was one of the happiest days of my life.
I blinked and it all came rushing back, reality knocking the breath out of me. Tears stung my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. Nathan watched and held me, never saying a word. Then he bent and kissed a tear away as it followed the curve of my cheek.
‘Now what?’ I put a hand in the centre of his chest and gave him a firm push, my wedding rings flashing in the light. Mocking my moment of weakness. ‘Was that just one last time, for old time’s sake?’
‘Is that what you want it to be?’
‘Damn it, Nathan, could you for once in your life answer a question without asking a question?’
I sounded angry and bitter. But what I was really feeling was overwhelming loss. The anger was familiar, comforting. I clung to it the way I’d clung to him moments ago, using it as a protective barrier against the words he was about to hurl at me. But there was no angry retort. He simply laughed.
‘I do that, don’t I?’
‘You just did it again!’ I said, smacking his shoulder in exasperation. ‘Just answer the question.’
‘I will if you stop hitting me, woman.’ He pulled me close, trapping my hands against his chest.
‘OK. Sorry.’
He laughed again, shaking his head. Then his smile faded. ‘I don’t want it to be the last time, Rachel,’ he said, sounding all growly-voiced like he had earlier. ‘I don’t want it to be over.’
‘But we’re divorced! And we sold the house.’ I pointed out the truths, but I neglected the most important truth of all – I didn’t want it to be over, either.
‘So what? We don’t have to be married to give it another go,’ he said, making it sound completely reasonable. ‘Let’s start over. Somewhere else. Someplace new. Let’s be new together.’
‘Let’s fuck on kitchen counters, you mean?’
‘Yeah. Let’s figure out where the hell we went –’ he shook me gently for emphasis ‘– and where we want to go now.’
I gazed at the kitchen floor, littered with remnants of my mother’s dishes while we stood half-naked in front of open kitchen windows that looked out on the street. My thighs were sticky with his desire and mine, too. It was crazy. Ridiculous.
It felt right.
‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘But we have to clean up this mess.’
‘Why? We’re not done yet.’
I wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the mess or the sex, and I didn’t care. I knew what had to be done.
I twisted out of the circle of his arms and unwrapped one of the dinner plates I’d already packed. Turning it over in my hand, I examined the tacky gold trim and the faded scene of pheasants in a field, and shrieked with laughter. It really was hideous. Maybe if we got rid of all the bad, the only thing left would be the good. I made a sound most often heard in karate class and flung the plate against the wall.
‘Rachel!’ Nathan said, as if shocked. But he laughed with me as I unwrapped and smashed another plate. ‘If the neighbours didn’t already get an eyeful and think we’ve gone stark raving mad, they’re definitely going to call the police now.’
‘I don’t care!’ I said, giggling helplessly and swiping at tears between bouts of destruction. ‘Help me! This will take all night.’
I froze in place as he cupped my breast through the bodice of my dress and ran a callused thumb over one bra-less nipple. ‘When we’re done, I’m going to fuck you good and proper in our bed.’
It was a promise I believed and the only vow that mattered right now. We’d take it one day – or ugly plate – at a time and see where it went. Who knows? Maybe we’d cobble together something even better from the shattered pieces of our life together.
‘You’ve got a deal,’ I said, flinging a teacup to the floor and feeling something hard and brittle inside me give way. ‘And I love you, too.’
We destroyed every dish long before the sun came up. And then he kept his promise.
The Story of Us
Some fairy tales don’t end happily ever after. And sometimes happily ever after is in the eye of the beholder.
My boyfriend and I have what some people would call a volatile relationship. I used to call it dysfunctional and addictive. Late at night when I couldn’t sleep and I was replaying our most recent fight, I called it fucked up. I hated him for bringing out the worst in me – but I loved him for it, too. And he felt the same way about me. We were on a path to destruction and neither of us was in a hurry to put on the brakes because it felt too damned good.
It’s not like Brian beat me or something. Nothing like that. The only bruises he ever left on me were during sex and I didn’t mind at all. But we fought a lot and we had broken up at least five times in as many years, maybe more if you counted the number of times I had thrown him out of my apartment and told him not to come back. But he always came back and I always let him. It is what it is, you know? It was just hard to say exactly what it was. It took me a long time to realise that the label was less important than the emotions.
My friends who have overheard some of our fights, or heard about them in the aftermath, ask me why I don’t just dump his ass and find a nice guy who will treat me right. I could. I know I could. I’m attractive, if not gorgeous, and I have a lot going for me personally and professionally. I’m not lacking self-esteem over here, trust me. But those nice guys my friends talk about leave me cold. I’ve dated those guys. The ones who won’t raise their voices when they’re angry, the ones who will take a few days to ‘cool off’ and then act as if nothing happened. The ones who remain even-tempered and good-natured no matter how many of their buttons you push. I hate those guys. They are as dull in bed as they are to fight with. Brian, on the other hand, is anything but boring.
What I don’t tell my friends, what I don’t even tell Brian because he’d say I was the one with the problem and I don’t need to give him ammunition, is that I like the fighting. It gets me hot. Yeah, I guess that is fucked up, isn’t it? But I think he likes it as much as I do and won’t admit it either. He pushes me and I push him and we fight. And after we fight, we make up. And the making up is hot and sexy and sweaty and rough. I fume for days after a fight, but the longer the wait, the hotter I get to make up with him.
The other thing I don’t tell anyone is that sometimes I have to change my panties after one of my screaming, throwing, slamming fights with Brian. I’m just wired that way, I guess. He pushes my buttons to piss me off and that does something to my other button. My clit stands at attention when we’re going nine rounds over who was flirting with whom at the bar or whatever. I hear myself say things I never thought I would ever say to someone I love, with my hands balled into fists at my side, not sure whether I’d rather slap his face or stroke my clit. Maybe both. Yeah, there’s something wrong with me. Right?
I’ve slapped him a few times, pushing him, taunting him. Waiting to see what he’ll do, hoping he’ll do what a nice guy would never do. When I started dating, while my friends were being told by their mothers that boys didn’t hit girls, my mother was practical and told me not to slap a boy unless I’m prepared to be slapped back. The threat of being hit by a boy scared me when I was thirteen but the thought of being slapped by Brian excites the hell out of me at thirty-three.
I guess I could just ask him to slap me. But that seems a little twisted. Nice girls don’t ask to be hit and I’m a nice girl. Except with Brian. He brings out the bitch in me. With everyone else, I’m this super-controlled, calm, rational, together woman. The female counterpart to the guys I’ve dated who keep their voices modulated and never swear during an argument. People who know me wouldn’t recognise me when I’m fighting with Brian. The problem is, I think I’m my truest and most honest self with him – when I’m longing for him to call me a slut and slap my face. Why else would I stay with him and fight with him? He brings out the worst in me – and I love him for it.
‘You’re a stone-cold bitch, you know that?’ he asked me once during a particularly gruesome battle. I don’t even remember exactly what we were fighting about – I only remember the fight itself.
Brian is a writer and works in advertising, so he’s always careful with how he uses language. He’ll say I’m being bitchy or I’m acting like a bitch, but that was the first time he’d called me a bitch outright. My head snapped back like he really had hit me. Hot tears pricked my eyes, but I furiously blinked them back. I didn’t want him to think he had gotten to me. If he thought he’d penetrated my ‘stone-cold’ exterior, he would stop taunting me. And I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted more. A lot more. So I just smiled. That’s something else my mother taught me. No matter what horrible insult someone hurls at you – smile. It makes them crazy. I knew for a fact that it made Brian crazy.
‘Only to you, baby,’ I purred. ‘Only to you.’
The veiled meaning was that there was some other guy who I treated better. I could practically see Brian imagining me fucking another guy, or a string of other guys. Jealousy twisted Brian’s face into something ugly and unfamiliar. I should have been scared, but that primal female part of me that loved the fighting and wanted more thought it was hot as hell. He looked like a brute – and I wanted him to unleash that brutishness all over me. I ached for it in a way I couldn’t explain even to myself.
‘What are you saying?’ His voice was quiet. Almost sinister.
I took a step forward, the threat of tears long gone, and smiled sweetly. ‘It means I know how to treat a real man.’
Lightning fast, he was on me, one hand grabbing my arm to push me up against the wall, the other hand coming up in an arc. I thought he was going to slap me. I really did. Even though I wanted it, was ready for it, I flinched just a little.
He blinked, as if touching me had shocked him and let me go so abruptly, I nearly fell. Damn. It was my own fault. This time, the tears came and I couldn’t stop them.
‘Go on, do it,’ I taunted him, though my voice sounded wobbly with emotion and had lost its previous heat. ‘You were going to hit me, you know you were. Go ahead and do it!’
I was screaming the words, like a child throwing a tantrum because she hadn’t gotten what she wanted. It sounded like a plea rather than a taunt. Brian just stared at me as if seeing me for the first time.
‘You thought I was going to hit you,’ he said, something different in his voice. ‘I was going to hit you. Swear to God, I was.’
It finally dawned on me why he sounded different. He sounded sad. I took a step towards him, tried to touch him. ‘Just do it,’ I begged. ‘Do it. You want to.’
He shook his head. ‘I’d never hit a woman. I’d never, ever hit you, Jules.’
I said what had been hanging in the air between us, the truth that I couldn’t hide from any longer, the reality that maybe was starting to dawn on him. ‘But I wanted you to.’
He rocked back on his heels as if I’d punched him in the stomach. ‘What the hell is wrong with you? Seriously, Jules, who says that? Who wants that?’
My first reaction was shame and embarrassment. I was messed up, something was wrong with me. He’d just said it. My shame was followed by white-hot anger. I said the other truth that was between us, the truth I’d always suspected and was now willing to put into words. ‘You want to. I know you do. It’s why we’re still together. It’s why you fight with me and push me and let me push you. You want to take it farther, you want to, but you can’t.’
His hand came up to my face, but too slow to actually be a blow. Instead, he tucked a lock of my dark-brown hair behind my ear and gave me another sad puppy-dog smile. ‘Maybe. But I can’t do that. I’m done, Jules.’
I thought he meant done fighting, but he fished his keys out of his pocket and took my apartment key off his ring. Then he laid it on the table by the front door and walked out. The door closed with a finality that echoed inside me. I didn’t start crying for another thirty minutes, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. Some time later, it started to rain.
* * *
Some time after 2 a.m., after tossing and turning for hours, I finally got up, threw a raincoat over my short n
ightgown and headed out into the night. I had only intended to go for a drive, but I found myself driving to Brian’s town house and parking on the street. I sat there, windshield wipers dashing away the heavy rain, staring up at his darkened windows and wondering if this was wise. I’d already gone this far, I decided, I might as well see it to its bitter conclusion.
He’d given me his key back, but he hadn’t asked for mine. I let myself in the front door, shushed his friendly Labrador Charlie, and made for the stairs to go to his bedroom. Brian’s voice caught me up short.
‘I’m in here,’ he said, calling to me from the living room just off the front entrance. ‘I figured you might show up.’
The room was dark, so it took my eyes a moment to adjust and see that he was lying on the couch, one arm tucked behind his head. He didn’t seem like he’d just woken up, nor was he surprised to see me. I took a hesitant step toward him, not at all sure how to read his relaxed body language or his quiet, neutral tone.
‘Brian, I –’ I stopped, not even sure what to say. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I finally said, though I wasn’t sure what I was apologising for. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
‘You want me to hit you.’
It wasn’t a question, but I didn’t know what to say back to him. Did I? Maybe. Yes. In the right context. When I wanted it, but only then. But I didn’t want to have to ask for it, I wanted him to just do it. Shit. How could I explain it to him when I didn’t understand it myself?
‘Not hit,’ I whispered, my throat raw from screaming and sobbing. ‘Not like that.’
‘Like how, then?’ He sat up and clicked the switch on the lamp beside the couch. A warm glow illuminated his face. He looked exhausted, a five o’clock shadow on his high cheekbones, his black hair tousled like he’d been running his fingers through it in frustration. I knew this face, this man. I knew him and I trusted him. I owed him as honest an explanation as I could give him, even if it didn’t make any sense to either of us.
Seduce Me Tonight (Mischief Books) Page 2
