Holding My Breath

by A. M. Hartnett

  As the steady marriage of the hard and the wet spread through her body, somewhere in the back of her mind she was vaguely aware of some residual unpleasantness from earlier in the evening, but over what? She couldn’t capture it as fingers and cock worked her into a frenzy. Body and mind in overdrive, she longed for the rest of his story to play out before her like a dirty movie.

  ‘There was a woman,’ he went on, breathlessly. ‘She’d been flown in a day earlier. When I first laid eyes on her I had a moment of panic that she was actually a captive and I’d just walked into some nightmare scenario. Her eyes were covered with a fetish mask, and she was tied to a chair, but when I walked in and was introduced as Monsieur W., she smiled. My client stood at her shoulder. She wasn’t allowed to see him, but I was, because our acquaintance said I could be trusted. He spoke to her in French. Who the fuck knows what he said to her, but she opened her legs and started to squirm. When I unzipped and gave her the tip on her tongue, I knew she wasn’t just playing along. She gave head like a woman who enjoys giving head, just like you.’

  When his body tensed against hers, she knew exactly where he wanted her. They moved as one until she was sandwiched between his hard body and the island. He grasped her shoulders and she thrust her hand between her legs, taking control of the sole thing he had relinquished.

  He held her tight and shredded his words through his teeth as he pumped her. ‘I can’t even remember what the fuck she looked like. Right now, in my head, she’s you. All you, red lips wrapped around my cock, sucking me dry and then just licking your lips and taking the next man’s.’

  Her body heavy and hot, her head fuzzy with the filthy things he poured into her, she was so close, so ready to come for him, but couldn’t bear the thought of finding her release before he got to the final act.

  She knew it already, and pushed back against his powerful thrust. ‘She wanted the three of you at once, didn’t she?’

  ‘She only spoke to the ringleader, and only in French. What she wanted from my friend and me she asked for by moaning. I don’t know what she said to him, or what he was waiting for, but he finally untied her. He left the blindfold on. She loved it.’ Quinn pressed his forehead between her shoulder blades, slick skin slipping and sharp whiskers scraping to give her a shiver. ‘Close your eyes, baby, and put yourself in her place – sucking and being sucked, writhing and screaming as you’re filled, one orgasm after another.’

  Molly squeezed her eyes shut and let sensation take over: the raw heat of his cock slamming into her and the power throbbing from her clit, and in her mind two phantoms standing aside, eyes glittering and chests pulsing as they jerked their hard cocks and waited for their turn.

  He pushed and she went down, tits squashed on the cold tiles and the edge of the island digging into her hipbones. All of that pulsing, pounding energy balled in her throat until she couldn’t keep it in a moment longer. Words broke free, not her words, not the woman in her kitchen but the version of her in her mind who couldn’t get enough, for whom this was only the first of many pleasures she’d be given that night.

  Quinn’s surrender was complete. She knew he had never left that place in his imagination where she took the place of that other woman. His grip turned to iron and he drove so deep and fierce that Molly felt the jolt in her fingertips. The animal sounds he made sputtered against her slick neck as his cock swelled and he emptied into the condom.

  Molly struggled to get to her feet once he had collapsed back onto the barstool. She finally gave up, instead reaching across the island for her glass. She pushed herself up just enough to guzzle what was left of the melted ice.

  Hearing his exhausted laughter, she twisted her head around. ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  He leaned forward with a groan and dragged her back onto his lap. What a pair they must have made, limp and leaning against one another, still breathless and shaking.

  Molly worked her tongue in her mouth and slung her arms around his neck. ‘So, how did it end that night?’

  ‘The way it always ends,’ he murmured, and tightened his embrace. ‘I get my money. I leave. I go home. I pay my mortgage and bills, I get myself a little something, and then I do it all over again. Not for much longer though.’

  She closed her eyes and struggled to smile. ‘You don’t have to tell me that. I don’t need reassuring.’

  ‘I’m not saying it to make you feel better. I’m saying it because I like to be reminded of it.’ He pressed his lips to her temple, then took a deep breath and swelled against her. ‘I feel like you look. If I told you I wanted to take you to bed, would you be offended if I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow?’

  A grin stretched across her mouth, and she loved to see the same on his face. ‘This is what I get for getting involved with a man of retirement age. Come on.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Molly peeked out of the steamy bathroom. It occurred to her when she was scrubbing her face that he hadn’t seen her face bare. Smudged, yes, but at the hotel she’d got up before he did and had her face on when she said goodnight to him. She wasn’t prepared to show off old acne scars and rosacea to a man who probably went for facials once a week.

  Thankfully, Quinn lay across her bed with his face turned away from her. She scuttled to the opposite side of the bed and killed the light, then nudged him onto his own side as she dived beneath the covers. With a grating snort, he flopped onto his back, then blew out a puff of air.

  ‘Now I can’t sleep. My body is telling me I still have an hour to go.’

  ‘That happens to me all the time. I find myself with nothing left to do at nine o’clock and I say to myself, “I should go to bed. I’m tired. I could sleep.” Then I just lie here wondering why I can’t sleep.’ She edged closer and tangled her legs with his. ‘They say if you put your body through the routine, eventually it will follow along on its own. I could never get the hang of it. My father woke up every morning at four to go to his job at the post office, and he went to sleep at eight every night. He’s been retired for five years now, and he still keeps that schedule.’

  ‘My grandfather was the same way,’ Quinn told her. ‘I lived with him from the time I was four. He worked driving a truck for Sears, but when he retired he got his cabbie license so he could work early mornings and late nights on the airport route.’

  He rolled onto his side and draped over her, the warmth of his hand spreading through her. Between the heat, the lethargy and the lullaby of his voice, he’d put her to sleep in minutes.

  ‘He’d sleep twice a day: five hours at night, and five hours in the afternoon. I’d get up for school in the morning and he’d already be gone, and when I came home he’d be snoring on the sofa. He’d get up, hassle me about doing my homework, and off he’d go again. I got so used to it I still tiptoe if I’m home in the early evening. That man could fall asleep even if you hung him on a nail.’

  ‘Why did you leave home?’ she asked quietly, unsure if she wanted the answer.

  ‘Nothing that would make your skin crawl, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said, and the mattress creaked as he moved closer. ‘I was dumb. We were living in Alberta, just outside Edmonton. I didn’t want to be trailer trash anymore, so when I was sixteen I told him I wanted to head to Vancouver. He just nodded and told me I’d be better off going to work on the oilrigs if I wanted to make big money. He gave me the keys to his old beater and a thousand bucks. The next time I saw him, it was to take him out of the nursing home Community Services had dumped him in. I took him back home to Newfoundland, seeing as I could afford it and he’d always said he wanted to go back home.’

  ‘You’re giving me the warm fuzzies, Quinn.’

  He laughed and gave her a squeeze. ‘I felt bad about leaving, but I knew I couldn’t stay, and it’s the least I could have done for him after I was dumped on him when my mother ran off. He spent the last two years of his life doing what he’d said he wanted to do: just sitting by the window wit
h a cup of tea, dividing his attention between watching TV and looking out at the lobster boats coming in. I don’t think it bothered him that I rarely visited. He loved me but I got on his nerves.’

  ‘Did he know how you got your money?’

  ‘I think he did, either that or he thought I was a pimp. He worried, but he never went over the top with the shit I got myself into. I never called him when I was arrested, except when they put me away. I called to let him know, and he just told me to pull up my bootstraps and watch myself.’

  The shadows moved, smudging the faint light from the street coming through the curtains, until she could almost see the shape of him in the darkness of the bedroom.

  ‘I hope it wasn’t too pushy inviting myself to spend the night,’ he said.

  Molly smiled in the darkness. ‘If I wanted you out, I would have put you out.’

  ‘I think you tried that before, and I won.’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  She swatted her hand and connected with his chest, then squealed as he grabbed her. No amount of resistance could get her out of his clutches. He found her wrists and clamped his hands around them, then threw his leg over hers. Giddy and giggling, she was trapped.

  ‘I win again,’ he said, then gave a cartoonish laugh as he squeezed her. ‘Let that be a lesson to you. Remember it.’

  ‘I have a feeling you’ll look for opportunities to remind me.’

  Completely wrapped up in him, Molly melted into his warmth. He didn’t deny her last words, and they were the last. Silence took over, his clutch loosened and she started to drift.

  A thought brought her out of her sleep, sudden and startling. He had told her so much about himself: his childhood, his suicide attempt, how he got started doing what he did.

  He’ll ask, she thought, closing her eyes again. He’ll figure out that something is off eventually, but will you even be ready to open up like he has?

  This haunting thought put her to sleep, and made the warmth of his embrace feel a little less comforting.

  Chapter Six

  ‘It took a few weeks to get you to see things my way, but I think you’ll agree that fucking before breakfast is the best way to start a Sunday,’ Quinn said as he pulled the blanket from where it had become twisted around his head.

  Molly tried to laugh, but couldn’t muster more than a breathy series of sounds.

  Sometimes she wanted to place her hand over his mouth. He always had something to say after getting her off, some sarcastic remark, as though patting himself on the back, and it would have irked her that he was taking advantage of her inability to form thoughts, let alone words, if it wasn’t for how well he got her off with that magnificent tongue.

  Starbursts still faded in and out in front of her eyes as he settled next to her. She was far too shaky to move anything but her head.

  ‘You forgot something down there,’ she managed to get out. ‘It’s still on.’

  ‘You just want me groping around down there again, don’t you?’

  He reached beneath the covers and felt around until he had found his toy, then held it in front of him as he switched it off. It was the vibrator that had caused the final eruption. He would have got her there with his lips and tongue, but when that slim shaft made contact with the underside of her clitoris she had gone a little mental. Her thrashing was what had bound him in the sheets, probably nearly strangling him, but Quinn had merely continued his task with as much relish as ever.

  He was far from done with her. She didn’t need to feel the length of his cock against her hip to know.

  Almost three weeks of wet and dirty sex had given her some insight into how he operated. It wasn’t just his profession to get a woman off but his personal mission, and he made sure she had at least one explosive orgasm before he gave any attention to his.

  Having set the vibrator on the table next to his side of the bed, Quinn tucked his arm under her head and bent his elbow to make a cradle. It was his way of getting and keeping her attention, and of holding her in place while he once more reached beneath the covers.

  Molly made the same half-hearted sound of protest she always did as his fingers returned to where he had left her so sensitive, but Quinn stopped it with his stare. There was something about having those blue eyes penetrating her that left no room for protest. As his long fingers slid through the slickness, she let herself slip into that fathomless gaze, then parted her lips as he lowered his head.

  Kissing him was rarely a charming affair when they were in full heat together. He kissed her the way he fucked her, as though to remind her that he could bring out this shameless woman who opened up with a look from him.

  He circled her tongue, giving her a tangy first taste of her own orgasm, before drawing her out. He sucked and licked until she withdrew, and then he sealed his lips against hers. Just as his fingertips plunged into the slippery entrance of her cunt, he mirrored this with his tongue.

  She closed her eyes and reached into his tangled hair. At first it was to hold on, to urge him to keep stoking that fire, but with the inferno she tugged at the thickness and closed her thighs to him.

  He lifted his head with a groan and ceased his exploration between her legs, but didn’t retreat altogether.

  ‘I don’t know why you won’t let me make you come again right after,’ he whispered, and laughed as she rolled her eyes. ‘There’s no point in trying to be modest with me. I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘That you don’t want to like it. Once I’ve got you on your back you’re reminded that even though I’m the prostitute you tried to kick out of your hotel, I’ve gone and made a fucktoy of you. And –’ he bowed until his mouth was close to her ear ‘– you love it.’

  ‘I’ll admit it: I do love it. You’re a great fuck. It’s like you’re perpetually hard and ready.’

  There was a wonderful rush that came from being so blatant. She liked it, and she liked that he acknowledged her honesty with a slight lift of his brow.

  ‘You know what I like?’ he asked her. ‘I like how when I think I’ve pushed you far enough, you let me push you a little more.’ He looked over her head to the table on her side. ‘Just one condom left.’

  ‘Is this some sort of fairytale? When you’ve used the last one you have to release me from this life of debauchery and you turn back into your true form of some hideous troll who lives under a bridge?’

  ‘No, it means I need to buy another box, and that’ll be the second since we met. Get one and put it on me, then get on your hands and knees.’

  It was her pleasure to oblige, to roll over what felt like double her weight and grab at the box with useless fingers. As lightheaded as she was, it took her a while to release the condom from its foil prison and wrap him up, but she got no help from Quinn. He stretched out, hands behind his head, exasperating amusement on his face.

  She wasn’t fooled into thinking he’d gone compliant and would allow her to straddle that hot, hard column she held now in her hand. She’d tried before and failed, been twisted into the position he wanted her in. As soon as the condom was on, he always lurched forward and took her by the waist.

  It was like, when he woke up, he formed a strategy in his head and jotted it down on a scrap of his brain.

  Today, I’m going to wake Molly with my tongue and that little silver vibe I ferreted out of her lingerie drawer, and once I’ve put us both in danger of a visit from the police about the screaming and begging, I’ll turn her over and treat myself to a little of that pussy I worked so hard to get as wet as it is. Depending on which of us comes first, I’ll either finish off with a bit of anal or I’ll do things the old-fashioned way and use my fingers on that sweet spot.

  She always knew by the way he posed her how it would be: across the bed meant he wouldn’t have her on her knees for long, that for now he just wanted the leverage of the mattress under one knee to really get her going; facing the foot of the bed meant he was going to ta
ke his excruciating time.

  Today, facing the headboard meant she’d make good use of the rungs and have to hold the fuck on.

  Done teasing, he positioned his cock at her entrance and pushed just enough to give her the thick knob. As soon as those clever hands landed on her hips, Molly lowered herself onto her forearms and grasped the lowest bar on the headboard as he went slowly and deeply.

  A breathless sound drifted around her with that first stroke. He remained embedded, swollen and throbbing in her slick passage, and dug his fingers into pliant flesh.

  ‘Right there,’ she panted. A hot shiver exploded midway up her spine and then between her shoulders and shook her while her slippery walls quaked. As if her body had set off a trigger in him, Quinn pushed deep, then began to shunt those magic hips.

  Her poor bed creaked and groaned, protesting once more that it wasn’t used to the rough treatment that made its mistress beg for more. Each hard slap of his belly against her ass jolted through her body. In spite of his strong grip on her, Molly was able to push back to meet his thrusts and he spurred her on.

  ‘Come on, now. Keep up with me,’ he said, words toppling out amid his rasping laughter. ‘You think I got you off because I’m a nice guy? Hell, no, I’m not on the clock here. I just wanted you like this.’

  He gave her a quick but sharp slap on the meat of her ass. The sting sent her lethargy scurrying and she pushed up onto her hands and bucked in tune with the bounce of the mattress underneath her.

  ‘Message received?’ he went on. ‘Little Miss Priss knows she needs to work for it?’

  ‘Fuck, you talk too much.’

  It was one thing to bow down before him, ass up and head bent in surrender to his hard body, and let the decadence of being owned take her to an explosive finish. This particular spin of the compass had set Molly off in a direction that was raw and exactly where she wanted to be.