Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits

by Felicia Watson

  Guess it was my night for embarrassingly quick comings.

  I could feel Niall’s own climax approaching, the increased thrusting inside me and the tightening of his hand on my hip. I wanted to savor it as much as my own; I wanted to give him that same ecstasy! I hissed encouragement and clutched him close to me. I tried to mold my body against his as he leaned into me and heaved out every gasping breath. He felt like an extension of me, like we consumed each other. I couldn’t have described the feeling aloud, but the satisfaction and the rich pleasure coiled deep in my groin and started to flood thickly through my limbs. It saturated me.

  When he came, I shared it with him, like I was suffering the same effort, the same sweet agony, the same ecstasy. His hips slammed sharply against mine and my ears rang with his cry of shocked delight, as if he hadn’t enjoyed such a thing for a long, long time. I didn’t know if he always sounded like that, or if it were something rare. I didn’t care, really; I was just too thrilled for sensible thought.

  Like I might have said before… I’d never felt like that before in my life.

  WE AMUSED ourselves for some hours after that first time; we couldn’t get enough of each other. I can’t remember much of anything we talked about, just the thrill of anticipation along my nerves every time he laughed, or moved his limbs in that way, or kissed me again… and every time our lustful desires were reawakened. Every touch made me catch my breath; another outrageous, tingling, thrilling climax brought amazement. In the end we were defeated by our own stamina—or lack of it—and we collapsed, still laughing, our muscles aching and exhausted. The mattress dipped under our combined weight as we relaxed, like it welcomed us on board.

  We untangled our limbs and wiped off the more obvious mess. I suggested a shower, but neither of us could find the energy to move for a while. I eventually fetched some chilled water and the pair of us drank it slowly. We listened to the music playing throughout the apartment, enjoying it but without really concentrating. There was soul and some jazz and some more obscure European composers. It was all good. Then, when the tracks faded to nothing, we sighed into the silence—companionably—and I turned it all off. I didn’t need any other company at that moment.

  We washed up and played around under the shower together. When he turned to kiss me, the water running down over his shoulders, his skin flushed with the heat, we both found our bodies stirring with the memory of recent, renewed lust. But then he shook his head and laughed, and I laughed along with him. Enough, already!

  We helped dry each other and pottered back to the bedroom. Lay on the bed and drank some more, talked about music. Yawned. Finally, Niall wriggled down on the bed, his arm still over my chest, and his conversation drifted to nothing. He fell asleep soon after.

  I stayed awake for a much longer time, just watching him.

  Jeez. I wasn’t any kind of lovesick teenager. But he looked so good, I felt I had everything I needed, right there. He slept totally unselfconsciously, sheets crumpled around his ankles, his limbs spread-eagled across my mattress like he slept there every night.

  It was all so cheesy! At any other time, it would’ve made my teeth clench. The whole romance thing was anathema to me. I liked occasional dating, I liked company. But it was usually a much more pragmatic approach for me. A couple of beers, a shared sense of humor, a measured glance down a body to see if the other guy felt the same physical interest. Then it was just a matter of seeing if anything developed between us. But this had been something very different, right from the start.

  And now he was asleep in my bed, apparently staying the night.

  Did I give him the usual get-outs? I searched my usual mental checklist. I always gave guys the chance to leave if they wanted; it didn’t often offend me. I’d waited for Niall to smile and say “Thanks,” to climb back into his clothes and ask if I had a local cab number. I would have offered him a drink and a sandwich, maybe. Dammit, I’d have clambered back into my own wrinkled jeans and driven him home myself. Anything to have kept that delicious, sated, sensual feeling humming between us. Anything to have stood a chance of seeing him again. And I didn’t mean at the office.

  But he’d seemed happy enough to stay with me regardless. I continued to watch him, holding my breath as best I could, in case I woke him and he got up to leave after all.

  He didn’t. And finally I slept myself.

  AFTER THE passion comes the reckoning. Whatever. That’d always been the way for me, my usual expectation. Maybe not straight away, but payback is always waiting in the wings. Isn’t it?

  I slept deeply after that first “date” with Niall, after showing him everything I had and a couple more things I thought I’d mislaid someplace along the rocky romantic way. I’d slept very deeply, but also very comfortably and right through my insistent alarm. When I finally woke with heavy eyelids and limbs full of lassitude, I stared stupidly at the clock for some time, trying to reorient myself. 08:17. I was going to be late for work.

  That morning after—everyone has to face it, right?

  The sheet beside me was creased, but the bed was empty. I tried to gather my thoughts, bemused by the remnants of sleep. My legs ached and my ass was unusually sore. Hadn’t I…? Hadn’t we…? Fuck.

  The rattle of cups in the kitchen startled me. I sat upright under the crumpled covers and held my breath until Niall appeared in the open doorway of my room, dressed in nothing but his pants and carrying two mugs of steaming liquid. He looked in, saw that I was awake, and paused right there.

  I hoped he’d found some fresh milk for his drink. I hoped he wasn’t catching a chill on the bare boards of my hallway, what with his bare feet. I hoped a lot of things, actually. I’d forgotten how good and how scary that felt.

  “Coffee,” he said, a little awkwardly and rather obviously, since we could both smell the hot, rich roast. “I guessed you’d want some. I make it rather strong, but I’m hoping that’s okay with you.”

  I coughed and found a thread of my voice still obeying me. “It’s fine.”

  “I called in. To the Team,” he said. I was still staring at him; didn’t reply. “To reschedule my meeting with Simon. To tell them we were working from home today.” His eyes widened suddenly as he realized what he’d said. “I mean—I was working from my home, and you were working from… damn.”

  I was still staring. If my eyes had got any wider, they’d have popped out of my head altogether. He stood there in my doorway, and he looked spectacular: rumpled hair, flushed skin, eyes darting around with uncertainty. Nervous, perhaps. But spectacular.

  “Look, I’m sorry about last night,” he started. Perhaps he saw me wince, because he hastened to clarify. “No, dammit, not that! I mean… I fell asleep in your bed, in your apartment, without asking if you’d mind. I was too tired. I was exhausted, actually. It’s been a hard week, moving over from the Department, briefing meetings with Judith. And last night, on top of that….” Was that a blush I saw? Fuck, it was cute on him. “You should have woken me, Tanner, and bundled me off home. I had no right to assume that was okay—”

  “But it was,” I interrupted. I looked at the mugs in his hands, but I wasn’t focusing on them. I couldn’t have told you what color they were or what stupid logo they might have been emblazoned with. I think I had an inane grin on my face again. “It was fine. Very fine. I wanted you there.”

  He stood in the doorway a little too long for comfort, as if he were trying to decide how serious I was. I suspected the hot mugs were starting to burn his thumbs. “Put them down,” I said. I shucked off the sheet and rolled around until I was kneeling on the bed facing him. Then I wriggled a couple of feet toward him. I was still totally naked. My skin goose-bumped in the cooler morning air, but it wasn’t just from the temperature. A deep, heavy warmth was growing and bobbing between my legs. Most distracting. “Put them down,” I repeated. “And lose those pants. Get back over here. I’m not thirsty for coffee. I want to fuck again.”

  His eyes flared some bright
message, something vivid and sensual that sparked an answering shiver across my skin. His breath hitched in his bare chest, and his mouth twisted in a slow smile. “That’s good,” he replied, placing the mugs on the floor by the bedroom door with exaggerated care. “Because I wasn’t sure if you would. It was all rather fast, wasn’t it?”

  “That suits me,” I muttered. I was only half joking. I couldn’t have held myself back from him if my limbs had been strapped to the proverbial wild horses. Yeah, it had been damned fast; I only met the guy three hours before we ended up in bed! I had no regrets at all, but I knew I ought to appreciate any that he had. “You’re sorry, Niall? You want to draw breath—take it slower? I understand….”

  “No,” he said abruptly. “I don’t want to. But I don’t know if I should. Hell, I don’t do this a lot, Tanner. That’s all I can say. It’s just… last night, being with you… it was like I couldn’t help myself.”

  “I know.” I grinned back at him. He looked even cuter, struggling with the words. I’d crawled to the edge of the bed by now and reached over for him. I plucked at the half-undone belt of his pants. “It’s the same for me. It happened, it was magnificent. I want some more. End of soul baring for today, okay?”

  He gazed at me, and that beautifully understated smile crept over his face again.

  I felt the blood rush through me like the tide coming in. My mouth grew dry, and my morning arousal wept shamelessly for his touch. I fell back on the bed, ignoring his laughing protests as his falling pants snagged on his hips, toppling him onto me. He caught himself on shaking arms and leaned over me, releasing a hand to push the bedraggled hair back off my face. He gazed down at me, and laughed with me, and sank down to kiss me.

  I knew even then that he was probably the best thing I’d ever seen. The best thing I could ever have imagined. The man who could quite possibly give me the best time of my life.

  It was only the first time I’d met him properly, yet it was the first time we came together. There was no doubt it was right; there was never any doubt at all, though I knew very little of him then.

  And probably not enough.

  Tuesday 02:40

  THE BEST time of my life? Oh yeah, it was!

  After that night, we definitely wanted to see each other again. And then again. We wanted each other’s company like a drug; we were hungry for each other like nothing else we’d ever known. I don’t know when—or if—the other guys learned we were seeing each other, because at first we were fairly circumspect at work. But outside of work hours, we drew together like moths to each other’s flame. We drank together, ate together, watched movies, played music. All that stuff. And we fucked as if it were permanently on sale.

  Glorious times. Most of the time.

  We were very different, of course. From the very beginning. For me, that was the excitement, the whole stimulation. I didn’t think it mattered that we communicated in different ways too. Hell, I could manage on very little, I thought. That, and the fantastic sex.

  But for us, being in a relationship was never going to be easy. For a start, we had the work situation. We weren’t always on the same jobs, and even if we were, the hours weren’t exactly nine-to-five routine. And over the course of the next six months or so, the Project Team asked more and more of us.

  Judith never said anything directly, but she was obviously under pressure to produce results. She drew in about a dozen other agents, but our group remained the core. And it was a damned small core. There was no official brief, just an amazingly wide collection of skills and enthusiasms and a bunch of people who itched restlessly to use them. But there was also no margin for error. The jobs they kept pitching our way were complex and often messy. I reckoned we got the stuff that other departments had turned down as too tricky. Flattering, but risky too. We were in on anything and everything; celebrity security issues, assassination threats, industrial sabotage, political sleaze. We’d investigate it, then decide how to deal with it.

  And we did produce results. Good ones.

  Seemed the variety and the risks suited us all just fine. We bounced ideas off each other and developed a way of working well, whatever the combination. I never felt as good as when I was in that Team, when I was with the guys, using the talents we had, working always at top speed, at top awareness. We had an exhilarating banter going between us; we were young and fit and full of confidence. And working like dogs.

  In some ways, I thought that was better for me and Niall, in that we worked together; we shared the tension and the excitement and the long days planning and directing. So okay, we had very little leisure time and weren’t always on the same schedule, but we’d find places to be together when we needed to. We laughed at ourselves, sneaking around like school kids, but I guess our passion was heightened by the adrenaline rush and the half-secrecy of our early relationship. Yeah, I got a blowjob in the janitor’s closet! Jeez, I had trouble looking seriously at the cleaners for weeks afterward. I’d recall the image of my foot stuck in a metal bucket, my pants around my ankles and my hair tangled in with a mop head. The handle jerked alongside me as I climaxed into Niall’s mouth, in a weird pseudo-sexual dance of its own. Niall laughed so much that my come dribbled out of his mouth and all down his shirt.

  There were more anecdotes than could fit in one of the more lurid men’s magazines. We christened the office tables, several cubicles, underneath the fire escape. And there was one particular stall in the executive toilets on the third floor of the main Department’s head office that had Niall’s fingernail tracks as a permanent feature of the Italian tiling.

  We even did it once on the back seat of an official car. Judith had been called into the Department for an update meeting, and they’d sent the official car for her. On her way back, she picked us up, intending to run a late Team briefing. Then someone from the Department rang her cell, asking for clarification on some point or other. She parked the car and went ahead of us into the office to take the call, leaving us to amuse ourselves for a while.

  We certainly did that. We flipped the windows up and down and played with her video telephone like naughty kids, and then Niall pushed me on to my back on the broad leather seat and wriggled his hand down the front of my pants. Two minutes later, my pants were around my ankles, my head was twisted awkwardly against the door panel, and my legs were wrapped tightly around Niall’s bare hips as he pushed into me. Mercifully, the windows steamed up quickly, and the expensive suspension proved more than equal to the challenge.

  He had to press his hand over my mouth to shut me up when I came. It was fast and funny and poignant, like the way tears squeeze out during a laughing fit. Don’t think Judith ever guessed what we’d been up to. We were easily decent by the time she returned to find out why we hadn’t followed her, though there was a rather rich aroma inside the car. Anyhow, we never risked it twice! Had to find alternative, less potentially dangerous places to satisfy ourselves.

  No one had ever made me enjoy sex so much. It was brilliant. He was brilliant. That’s how it all seemed to me. We wanted each other, we were both committed to the world we lived and worked in, and life was all there in front of us. But I don’t think either of us understood what was happening to us.

  I know I didn’t.

  I SUPPOSE I never gave much time to thinking it through – where we might go with this affair, what we both wanted from it all. Neither of us could think straight, it seemed, except through our dicks. But Niall seemed happy enough with it all, happy enough with me. That’s what I thought, anyway. I didn’t always have a lot to go on. There’d been confusion between us as often as there was lustful joy.

  “Just tell me what you’re feeling. How you think it’s going.”

  “What do you mean?” That was a popular phrase of his. He stood opposite me in the lounge of his apartment on a typical evening, a half-empty beer bottle in his hand and tiredness in his eyes. “Tanner, I don’t see why I have to talk about everything. You know how I feel.”

  I
was frowning, and I could feel the nagging onset of a headache. For a second, I couldn’t even remember what I’d been asking him. It’d been a hell of a long day for me, too, though we’d been on different jobs. “Maybe I don’t know, not always. It’s just the way I lead my life. I like to hear things, I like to discuss them.” Dammit, he was so good—we were so good! —I wanted to praise the fact and pimp it and just generally pet it all. I felt that way about everything where Niall was concerned. Every damned feeling, from the fiercest orgasm to the strange ache that I felt inch by inch across my body every time he ran a hand through his hair.

  He was puzzled but smiling back at me. He ran a hand through his hair in just that way. I stepped forward, and his hand lifted at the same time, reaching for me.

  “Tanner, I was stunned from the moment I saw you.” His smile faded, shadowed by something that disturbed him. “I’ve never felt like that about anyone in my life. Even before I spoke to you.”

  “Huh?” His hand was stroking slowly along the line of my jaw, and I stretched up into the touch.

  “I just looked at you and wanted to know you. In every sense of the word.” He tsked softly. “Is that the kind of thing you want to hear? It’s not easy for me….”

  My mouth was over his before he could finish the sentence. Words couldn’t compare to that taste. But yeah, he could be damned good with them when he chose to.

  I was spending more time at his place than my own, and we were effectively living together. Because personal time was so snatched and precious, we’d decided early on that neither of us wanted to spend our nights in a game of musical beds. Instead, we took joint meals and sleepovers in each other’s apartments whenever we could and duplicated most things we owned so that we never got caught without a toothbrush or spare socks.

  Niall had an apartment in the Westbridge building, in a residential area north of town. It was one of the places that Judith had cleared for security purposes. It was critical that her Team worked secretly and anonymously, and yet comfortably. Somehow she hadn’t yet got around to re-housing me as well; I’d been wondering whether to take her neglect personally. However, his place was a damned sight smarter than my downtown apartment, so I enjoyed my time there. We went our separate ways out in the field, but then we came back together—back to washing up, reading the papers at night, yawning our way around grocery stores, playing interminable games of chess, waking up with sheets tangled around us and pillows kicked off on the floor. All that stuff that comes with living together.