by Louisa Trent
And then there was Gillian. He was a major part of her life, the love of her life.
She never discussed Gill with anyone. Not their love affair, and certainly not his death. She hadn't gotten to that calm plateau yet where she could talk about her beloved Gillian and not break apart.
Gillian. Gillian. I miss you so...
Blue wiped at her smarting eyes, tried to collect herself.
Lou and she, they were only in this for sex. This initial stage was awkward, but she'd get past it. She absolutely would!
But she had to stop taking her sadness out on the man at her side. He had no part in her broken heart, and it was wrong to be spiteful just because Lou wasn't Gillian.
“Lou,” she said, softly, “I want you to know that you're not botching things. You're doing fine.”
He hesitated. “Sure?”
“I'm sure.”
After that, they walked side by side along the pier, two separate people, each of them trapped in their own separate thoughts, their own separate lives. So it came as a surprise when cool fingers touched her nape, the tips of those cool fingers skimming her hair, the large palm, masculine and heavy, using her shoulder as a home base. Just when she was getting used to having it there, the hand shifted to the center of her back, before dropping lower, onto the small of her back under her shirt where her sensitive nerve endings picked up its dry coolness. Now, that large masculine hand was on her bottom, cupping a buttock.
Lou was just chock full of surprises! She hadn't taken him for the sort to take the sexual initiative. She assumed she'd make the first move, just as she had inside Sprouts.
But, no. Lou folded her into him, his jaw lowered to her jaw, and everything else, including her sadness, disappeared as he pressed her body to his body, his free hand, the one not carrying the takeout bag, going around a shoulder. Then combing her hair. Then cupping her neck. Then smoothing down her back. Again. Then that hand lifted her atop his erection while his tongue twined with hers.
Jeez, Lou had a powerful hand on him for a businessman. She was thin, but tall, which made her no lightweight. He didn't seem to notice.
He did notice her inability to breathe.
When she clutched for air, he stumbled back, let her go.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he moaned. “Couldn't help it, Blue.”
“S'okay,” she gasped, her chest bellowing.
It was better than okay. The man could certainly kiss.
Lou hadn't sucked at her mouth or slobbered at her mouth or bruised her mouth. His kiss was a soft caress—
At least, at first. After a heated interlude of open mouths and dancing tongues and deep-throated sighs, the kiss changed to a passionate declaration of ... of
What?
Gosh, she had no idea. She was no virgin, but the subtle nuances of the man/woman thing often escaped her.
“Can you breathe?” he asked, obviously concerned.
“Yeah, Lou, I can breathe.”
“Good,” he replied, obviously relieved.
And then Lou's hand was obviously funneling under her loose shirt again, to the bare skin of her back again, rising upward to where her bra fastener would be if she wore a bra, which she didn't, never had, not even a training bra. No need. No interest. She was small breasted and that was just the way it was. Which was why, right from the start, she'd made a point of letting Lou know what he was getting-or she should say-what he wasn't getting. No false advertising. No big build-up leading to a disappointing flatness. Like her or don't like her, she was who she was.
But who was this guy she'd picked up?
She wasn't quite sure, any more. For safe, he seemed awfully intense. Frankly, his hunger was a bit overwhelming.
He wasn't hungry for her, of course. He was hungry for sex.
“You must be divorced,” she quipped.
“No.”
Blue wrenched away.
No wonder Lou seemed so tense! No wonder he was starved for sex. He must have a wife at home!
[Back to Table of Contents]
CHAPTER FOUR
“Hold on here for just one single solitary fuckin’ second,” Blue said in a blaze of heat, ready to do battle for the sanctity of marriage.
Lou had only just said he didn't lie, and he was lying through his teeth, lying in the most despicable way of all. She loathed men who cheated on their wives! And in the sisterhood she belonged to, one woman doesn't screw another woman over a man. Not even a man with an incredibly huge dong and who knows how to kiss.
But, really, how gullible could she get, anyway? She'd left Sprout's with a man in a business suit. A business suit! Her! Men in business suits were not trustworthy. Did she not know that?
Of course, she knew that! What was she thinking?
Her artist hands knotted into fists at her sides. “Listen Lou, I don't know where you get off thinking I'd do this with a married man, but I don't, not ever.”
“I wouldn't be here, Blue, if I was married,” he said quietly.
The weird part was, because he said the words with such offended dignity, she actually believed him. And because she believed him, she went very still inside.
Please, God, don't make him a widower! One broken heart in a bed is enough.
Lou played with his tie. Again. “The truth is, I've never been married.”
But he had a son...?
Something didn't add up here.
“Pete is adopted?” she said, hazarding a guess.
“No!” he exploded, and the jolt from his raised voice knocked her back on the rubber soles of her work boots. “Pete is mine. All mine. I was his father from the moment he was conceived and I'll be his father ‘till the day I'm put in a hole. Look, could we please keep walking?” he asked, his tone leveling down a few hundred notches on the Richter scale.
“All right. Sure.”
Jeez, Josephine! She must've hit a nerve or something. She'd certainly caused a seismic reaction in mild-mannered Lou. And here she thought the adoption question was innocuous ...
Her feet started moving.
And he said nothing.
His silence just got her so bull. Though, really, why should she be offended? Just because he'd closed up like a friggin’ clam, locked her out of his life? Why should she care? His life was his business. His prerogative, if he didn't want to talk about anything personal. She had secrets too. A broken heart, as well. They were just in this for sex. As long as he wasn't married, that's all—
Minutes of empty air went by.
“I was in the navy and lonely for home,” Lou said, his fingers on his tie. “I had one date with a woman on shore, didn't use anything, and she got pregnant. Luckily, I wasn't a total inconsiderate jerk; I left her all the pertinent information on how to get in touch with me should something develop from the night.
“It did. When she wrote and told me about the baby, I asked her to marry me. She was a decade my senior, just coming out of a bad marriage, a bitter divorce, and she wanted no part of me or of another baby-she already had two little ones. She told me to stick the wedding band and just give her the money for an abortion.
“I talked her out of it, with the agreement that I would take over full financial responsibility for her while she was pregnant, and for the baby when it came. I was getting out of the service, had a steady job waiting for me here in Fenton, and I could afford to raise a child alone. It worked out good. Pete's eighteen now and a real great kid.”
“And Pete's mother?”
“After I paid her off, I never saw her again.”
“Did you have a paternity test done?”
Lou looked at her like she was an abomination, or at the very least, like a member of the insect family, but he didn't blow up again. “What for? Pete is my son.”
Lou was obviously a trusting man.
She didn't want to give him the third degree, but he had made her curious and so she asked, “Why didn't you marry? I mean, you were alone and you had a child to raise. Wouldn't sh
aring childcare with a wife have made the burden easier?”
“Pete was never a burden. He made my life ... well ... fun. I don't know what I would've done without him. Besides, help with childcare isn't a great reason for getting married. And life gets in the way of dating, you know? Things get complicated, and future dates don't work out for one reason or another.”
Aha! Loosely translated, Lou had a major inability to commit. He was unable to sustain a long-term relationship. He jumped from one bed to another. In other words, Lou was your typical marriage phob male.
Fine with her. She was only after a weekend of his time, no huge commitment there.
She nodded. “No need to make this any more than what it is, Lou. I completely understand. Sex without obligation is what I want too.”
“No, Blue, it's not like that,” he protested. “I'm attracted to you. Let's see where this takes us-”
“Shh.” A finger to his deliciously sculpted lips, she silenced him. “No lies.”
He gently shook her finger away. “I told you, I don't lie. You're in town for three days, let's take it one day at a time. And I'm sorry about raising my voice like that. I don't understand what came over me. Please give me another chance.”
He dropped his eyes to his buff-shiny dress shoes. “I like you, Blue.”
He sounded so sincere! And maybe he was sincere, but she didn't take his protestations to heart. It was guy-speak, the old male party line. Things men said as a matter of course. The pretty words meant nothing; they were just reflex talk, said so many times that he probably didn't even consider them lies.
“Lou, relax. I told you, I'm horny. And if this works out tonight...” With a shrug, she left the invitation dangling.
“Well, seeing that I'm on probation, I'd better start showing you what I can do.”
Lou's cool hands were on her again, all over her again. Then his mouth descended. And his lips, good Lord, his lips! The kiss was consuming her.
“Lou,” she gasped, rubbing her mouth against his mouth, her lips grinding to his lips, her pelvis gyrating against his bulge. “I'll never make it to where we're going. I'll die if I don't have you. Lou, Lou, Lou, I think I am dying. Please?”
She dragged Lou further into the darkness, the better to take advantage of him. Alongside a boat named the Merry Melody, her usually deft artist's fingers tripped over her shirt buttons.
Upon seeing what she was up to, Lou dropped the takeout bag he was carrying.
His was the somber voice of inconvenient reason. “Blue, the pier isn't the place for this.”
She wouldn't listen. “I can't wait.”
“Not here.”
"Pleeese, Lou?”
“We're close to where I work. We'll have privacy there. It's only just around the corner.”
“What's wrong with this corner?”
“I'm crazy to have you, Blue, but-”
This was his idea of crazy?
The guy didn't know what real crazy was. She'd go ape-shit nutsoid if she didn't have him!
At her pleading look, he stopped trying to think up excuses as to why they shouldn't do what they both wanted to do and said, “Damn!”
Now they were getting somewhere.
Up ‘till then, nice mannerly Lou hadn't used any bad words at all. Not that ‘damn’ exactly qualified as a bad word, at least not in her foul-mouthed point of view, but it was better than nothing, better than darn. Darn would have really weirded her out. And the ‘Damn!’ was uttered with a decent amount of feeling behind it, enough to knock the innocuousness out of it, give it some much needed punch and turn the mild curse into a harsh grate of exasperation-
Though the hands shooing her suddenly clumsy fingers from their task were infinitely careful.
“Allow me,” he said softly, courteously, respectfully. What would it take to shake this guy up?
His son, she answered. Anything to do with his son. The guy loved his kid and that's why he exploded back then. Gotta admire a quiet man who'd crank up the volume for those he loved.
Lou finished undoing the row of buttons on her shirt, the ones her own hands were shaking too much to undo. Without one falter.
A little trembling on his part would have been greatly appreciated, as she was so obviously lust addled herself.
But no. Rock steady hands carefully parted her shirt. Just a bit. Only enough to reveal a pale strip of flesh. Not nearly enough, not in her present frame of mind.
Touch me! Her brain screamed.
He didn't.
“There's a chill in the air tonight. Is the breeze off the river too much?” he asked.
Fuck his control and fuck his consideration too!
How could be so cool when her flesh was feverish? She was burning up, couldn't he see that? Her temperature had to be about a zillion degrees. His cool hands could break her fever. She needed them on her body to put out the fire.
She'd told Lou she was horny. Twice. Horny was funny. Everyone joked about needing some, about trying to get some, about the morning after some had finally been gotten. Sexual desperation was fair game for laugh material.
There was nothing remotely funny about the sexual desperation she'd come down with for Lou. This was worse than having the flu. No one laughs about getting the flu. Maybe it was the flu. She felt sick. To her stomach. To her head. There were associative body aches too. Her breasts hurt. And her pussy was...
This wasn't the flu. Unless it was the Lou Flu.
She'd never felt so vulnerable, or so scared. She was falling apart. Over a conservative businessman in a suit.
“I'm not cold,” she said, weakly, so very weakly, and she was never weak.
Nor was she ever this unfunny. She was too tall. Too unfeminine. Too assertive. Too different to be part of the mainstream. Unfortunately, her skin wasn't quite thick enough not to care. As a kid, in defense against an often times cruel world, she'd armed herself with a wicked sense of humor. Barbed irony was her weapon of choice. After years of honing her skill to pointed precision, she could get a laugh in any situation and usually at her own expense. And then into her funny fortress walks Lou, and he totally disarms her. In his company, the sharp blade of her wit had dulled. Stripped of her self-protective armament, she was feeling things much too much.
Why'd she ever pick him up? He was the wrong kind of guy for what she had in mind.
“If you do get cold, just tell me,” he said, voice serious, his head dipping to hers, his jaw slanting to her jaw, his beautiful firm lips seeking her not-so-beautiful lax lips.
He made her defenseless.
But this was not a man who moved in for the quick and easy kill. Lou was taking the time to romance her first, though there was clearly no need to romance her, to seduce her, to take his time. She was hardly hiding her susceptibility; he had to know how his closeness affected her. He must realize how drawn she was to him!
Yet, he kissed her tenderly, as though he really wanted to kiss her, as though the kiss wasn't a stepping stone to anyplace else. He took her lips as though the kiss was the destination in and of itself, not just a brief detour on the way to bed.
“Doing okay?” he finally asked against her open mouth.
“F-fine,” she squeaked.
“Good.”
Two big hands swallowed up her small breasts, and those cool hands, rather than putting out the fire, were adding gasoline to the flames. She was fully engulfed, about to spontaneously combust.
He stroked her nipples and she moaned in open-mouthed pleasure. Belly clutching, loins gone damp, her hands wound themselves into his short conservative hair.
How good his conservatively short hair felt between her hot, hot, astonishingly hot fingers!
“Don't stop,” she panted,
At her heated instruction, something changed. Where before Lou had reverently stroked her breasts, now he squeezed. Fondled. Kneaded. Grasped!
“Damn, damn, damn,” he muttered.
In the darkness, his mouth found her gaping-i
n-surprise mouth again; his tongue pierced the interior, ramming its way roughly toward the back of her throat.
This was not the sort of foreplay she'd expected from a guy wearing a suit and tie. This was not neat and tidy. Not a tribute to a staid businessman's organizational skills. This was not choreographed in any way that might impress her. His hands, not cool any more, not rock steady now, moved all over her, seemingly in several directions at once.
His wildly roaming, clutching, grasping hands bumped into her hands as they made their way to his zipper.
“No!” he growled, “I'll come if you do. Let me touch you, make you happy.”
New concept being on the receiving end of foreplay. New concept a man wanting to make her happy. New concept not being in charge.
But, “O-okay,” she managed to stammer.
Though, after she gave the go ahead, fear, that pleasure-depriving monster, slammed into her belly with the force of the seven furies.
What was this? What was going on? How come he was doing all the work?
Evidently, Lou didn't view it as work. He seemed to be enjoying himself. As for her, she had no complaints. So, she let him. Quite simply, she submitted. That's all she had the energy to do anyway. For some reason, just breathing was taking all of her powers of concentration...
“Lou, Lou, Lou,” she gasped, and sputtered, and choked.
“Yeah. Who would've known?” he replied.
No shit, not her. Fuck, not her. Where had this come from? These feelings, these emotions, these painfully pleasurable sensations ... she hadn't expected them, didn't even know if she wanted them. Experimentation without commitment, yes. Not this ... this emotional upheaval!
Big, capable hands moved from her breasts to her bottom, a dark head dipped, a mouth latching onto her pierced nipple and pulling. Pulling. Pulling. Tenderly pulling.
It was a sensation unlike any other. Slightly edgy. Unquestionably erotic.
When his teeth scraped delicately back and forth against the very tip of her hardened nipple, she moaned. Out loud now. Her mouth agape. Jaw raised. Howling like a she-wolf to the night sky.
