Standing in the Shadows

by Shannon McKenna

  She was scared of it. It was up to her to put her foot down, to make him stop, but this was too big to stop. Too strong.

  “This is what I want, Erin,” His soft voice challenged her. “Prove to me that you’re my woman. Show me that you know that I’m your man.”

  “But you’re angry,” she said unsteadily. “You’re—you’re—”

  “Furious,” he agreed. “I’m so angry I think my dick is about to explode. Suck on me, Erin.”

  He pushed himself against her lips, made her taste his salty heat.

  She was too aroused to resist him. She clutched his hips and drew his hot, smooth member deep into her mouth. She bathed him with hot, wet, suckling tenderness, with the swirl and flutter of her tongue.

  She forgot the dress, forgot Mueller, forgot everything except this raw, elemental dance of lust and longing, and amazingly, she found her power over him again in his harsh, sobbing breaths, in the desperate way he thrust himself against her. She gripped him in her hands, exulted when she felt his climax gather, tighten, about to burst—

  He flung his head back, gasping, and pulled her head away from his penis. The pulsations of the orgasm that he had denied himself throbbed heavily against her gripping, sliding hands.

  She looked up at him. “Connor? Why—”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want to come yet. I want to fuck you first.”

  He jerked her up to her feet and dragged her close to him, sliding his hand beneath the curve of her bottom and into her cleft, seeking out the liquid excitement hidden there. “I won’t force you if you don’t want me,” he said. “But I don’t scare you, do I, Erin? You’re sopping wet. I want to bend you over and fuck you hard. Do you want it?”

  She had no words, no strength to resist this dark tide of passion. Her thighs clenched around his hand, silently begging for more.

  “Oh, yeah.” He set his teeth delicately against her throat and licked away the sheen of sweat on her skin. “I take that as a yes. Tell me if I’m wrong. Tell me quick, because in a few seconds it’s going to be too late.”

  Her voice was locked in her throat. She craved his strength and passion, she craved the savage, conquering warrior behind his mask. She moved against his hand, seized his penis, and gave it a long, slow, swirling caress. A sensual demand he could not misunderstand.

  That was all the answer he needed.

  He exploded into movement. She spun through the dim room, dazzled by hot red streaks of light and darkness. Always before, her rustic basket lamp had struck her as homey and cozy. Now the effect was as voluptuous as an erotic dream set in a Victorian bordello.

  He bent her over, shoving her face down onto the table. The teapot and the vase of dried flowers toppled, rolled, and shattered on the floor. The sugar bowl tipped and spilled sugar across the table. Scattered granules glinted in the reddish light like snow at sunset. Connor shoved her hair out of her face. She saw his shirt fly off behind him out of the corner of her eye. He thrust his legs between hers, kicked them open.

  She was desperate for intimacy with him, but this incoherent, furious sexual energy separated them as much as it aroused them. The room was silent but for their harsh breathing. He pressed against her and thrust inside, too hard. It hurt, deep inside. She let out a sharp cry.

  He stopped moving instantly. She hadn’t softened enough yet for such a total invasion. Tension gripped her. An awful, shrinking fear that this could turn really bad. That he might punish her with his body.

  He did not. He curved himself over her in mute, trembling apology and petted her, soothing her with his hands. His fingers silently begged her forgiveness as they slid around her hips and into her damp thatch, seeking her clitoris. They coaxed and sought her pleasure with tireless, tender persistence. When she relaxed and moved herself against him, he finally began to rock inside her, gliding in tender, careful thrusts.

  He pressed his face against her throat, an animal gesture, nuzzling its mate. “You are so goddamn beautiful, Erin,” he said roughly.

  Her throat began to shake. His thrusts deepened. Tears wet her face, pressed hard against the spilled sugar on the table. Salt and sweet against her open, panting mouth. No matter how angry he was, he could not bear to hurt her.

  Connor sucked in a deep breath, concentrating until the drum roll of impending ejaculation had receded. He didn’t want this to finish quickly. He wanted it to be extremely memorable for her. He wanted to lay his claim, put his stamp on her, no matter how futile the effort.

  He stared down at their joined bodies. His cock gleamed as it emerged from the slick, clinging recesses of her body. Her delicious scent was a humid, intoxicating cloud. Her flushed face was turned to the side, eyes squeezed shut, hair a dark tangle against the table. Her rosy buttocks quivered, and the tight folds of her cunt clasped around him. She was beautiful and red-hot, and she was his.

  Goddamn it, she was his.

  He’d started out with every intention of being hard and selfish with her, but it happened again, like it always did. She surrounded him with her heat and her scent and her softness, and bam, he’d already coalesced into one writhing entity, totally fused with her. Tuning into her feelings so he could find just the angle, just that perfect pressure that would stoke the hot glow deep inside her that he sensed, like a burning coal in his mind. The table rocked on its wobbly legs with every slap of flesh against flesh, with every gasping pant. She was dripping, whimpering, her sheath so softened that he could finally dare to let go, and fuck her as deep and hard as he longed to without hurting her.

  She convulsed around him, wailing. The clutching pulses of her climax almost pulled him over the top with her, but he dragged himself back. Just barely. The table was about to collapse. He pulled her, stumbling, to the bed, and tumbled her facedown onto the quilt.

  She rolled over to face him before he could pin her down from behind. Not good. He wanted to lose himself in pounding oblivion. What he absolutely did not want was for her to stare up into his face with those big dark eyes that saw so much, that stripped him bare.

  Then he saw her hair tangled over the pillow, her plump breasts heaving, legs splayed open, cunt glistening. A sheen of sweat made her body gleam like a pearl in the red whorehouse light.

  He trembled as he stared down at her. He’d never seen the point of kinky sex props and accoutrements before, but those black stockings, those fuck-me shoes, that smeared mascara, drove him out of his skull, like whips snapping at him, stinging him into a blind red chaos of lust and fury. The goddamn bed was too narrow to push her legs wide. He wrenched it away from the wall. He wrenched off his boots, his jeans.

  He had no secrets, no masks with her anyway. He would take her from the front, and to hell with what she saw in his face.

  Connor’s expression did not soften as he mounted her. She flinched and braced herself, grasping his shoulders. It was so different like this. None of the warmth and tenderness of last night. None of the joy. Just hunger and need and hard anger. It made her feel alone and desolate, even while he overwhelmed her with his big body.

  She pressed her hands against his chest, feeling the muscles shift and move beneath the hot softness of his skin as his hips pumped heavily against her. “I don’t want it like this between us,” she said.

  He bore her down under his weight, pinning her to the bed. “This is the way it has to be,” he said. “I couldn’t pretend to feel anything else tonight, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. What would be the point?”

  “I’m not asking you to pretend,” she said. “I’m asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to remember. Last night, you said that we—”

  “Last night you hadn’t lied to me and jerked me around. Last night you hadn’t driven me out of my skull with jealousy. The world was real different last night, sweetheart.” He folded her legs up high and thrust, hard enough to make her gasp. “And you were the one who changed things. Not me. So take responsibility.”

  His words kindled a spark of anger that
glowed and flared brighter every second that passed. “I always take responsibility,” she shot back. “Always. All my life. For every single goddamn thing. But this time, I won’t do it.” She slapped at his chest, and struggled beneath him. “This time, it’s not my fault, Connor! This thing is not…my…fault!”

  He grabbed her flailing wrists and gazed down at her with narrowed eyes. “So are you saying that it’s my fault, then?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t understand what’s happening to us. It’s like we’re under an evil spell. But I do know that I love you, Connor! I love you!” She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down against her.

  “Damn it. No. I don’t want to—damn it, Erin!” He swore viciously and fought her, but she hung on to him with all her strength. He would have to hurt her to make her let go, and she knew he couldn’t bear to.

  She persisted, pulling on him until he collapsed on top of her with a harsh sob. He hid his face in the pillow and pumped himself against her, painfully hard. He let out a muffled shout. The paroxysm that wrenched through him seemed almost more like pain than pleasure.

  His heart thundered against her bosom. She cradled his trembling, sweaty body and tried to pull his face to hers so she could kiss him.

  He utterly refused to turn. He just shook his head and kept his face stubbornly buried in the pillow. She petted his damp hair, searching for words, but there were no words that could make the wall between them disappear. It felt as thick and cold and implacable as stone.

  Connor finally pushed himself up and off her body, letting his hair veil his face. She knew that trick. She’d been using it all her life.

  She reached to push his hair back. His hand flashed out and clamped over her wrist, blocking it. He shook his head, and let go.

  He turned his back on her and started to pull on his jeans.

  She stood up on unsteady legs, and realized that they hadn’t used a condom. Scalding liquid trickled down her thigh.

  She unbuckled the fragile, ridiculous shoes. Stripped off the ruined stockings. Her mind couldn’t encompass it all. She could only handle little bits at a time. Connor’s back to her, rigid with unspoken pain and fury. Mueller’s icy attempt at seduction. Nick’s revelations. Novak’s death by fire. The golden dress, rent in two. Connor’s seed, trickling down her thigh. The seams of her life had all burst.

  She stumbled into her bathroom, and closed and locked the door.

  Connor got dressed and waited, his head in his hands, for her to come out. It was a long wait. At one point, Erin’s cat poked its head out cautiously from under one of the chairs. It picked its way daintily out into the middle of the ravaged room, sat down on its haunches, and regarded him. There was a cool, judgmental gleam in its golden eyes.

  “Who the hell do you think you’re looking at?” he asked it wearily.

  The bathroom door finally opened. Erin walked out, still naked, but damp and smelling of her shower gel. Her face was severely innocent of makeup, her hair smoothed back into a tight, gleaming wet braid.

  She headed to the chest of drawers next to the bed, pretending he wasn’t right there, at arm’s length, staring at her. She pulled out white cotton briefs that looked like they came three in a pack from Kmart. She pulled on a pair of baggy sweatpants. An oversized T-shirt. A fleece pullover. She tugged thick white athletic socks onto her feet.

  She was trying to look sexless. What a joke. He would have laughed, but if he let himself laugh he might start to cry again, and he couldn’t risk it. He waited until he could trust his voice to be steady.

  “Nick called you this morning. That’s why you broke your promise.” He tried to make his tone neutral, but it came out accusatory anyway.

  She nodded, and padded across the room to the kitchen nook. She rummaged in a drawer until she came up with a garbage bag.

  “What did he tell you? That I’m crazy? Delusional?”

  She struggled with the bag until it opened, and went to the table, still ignoring him. She scooped spilled sugar off the tabletop and into the bag with her hand. She gathered up the crushed dried flowers.

  Tension built inside him. “Answer me, Erin. What did he tell you?”

  She let out a long, shaky sigh, sank down onto her knees, and began to gather up the shards of the ceramic teapot and the vase. “He told me Novak was dead. That you knew that he’d been spotted in France. That the police there have been moving in on him for days.”

  “Sure, he told me, but I didn’t believe it. Novak is—”

  “Was. Novak was. He is dead, Connor. Blown up. They’re sure it’s him, based on dental records, the missing fingers. The DNA tests will follow, but they’re just to confirm it. He’s dead. It’s over.”

  He shook his head. “No way. Too many things don’t fit.”

  “That’s what Nick told me you would say,” Erin said.

  He forced himself to say it, and the words came out rough and halting. “Did he tell you that I’m a murderer, too?”

  “He said you were a suspect,” she corrected. “Not a murderer.”

  “And do you think I did it?”

  She shook her head, unhesitating. “Not in a million years.”

  She tossed all the broken crockery into the bag, and reached under the sink for a dustpan and whisk broom. Every gesture was brisk and efficient. Trying as always to make order out of chaos.

  But this time, he was the chaos.

  “What else did he tell you, Erin?” he demanded.

  Erin dragged the plastic bag over to the ruined dress and stuffed it inside. “He told me I should keep my distance from you. So that I wouldn’t get hurt. But surprise, surprise. I couldn’t.”

  “I would never hurt you,” he said.

  “You already have.” She dragged the clinking garbage bag behind her, and knelt in front of him, flinging the balled up stockings into it. She flung the shoes in after them, jerked the neck of the bag up, knotted it. “In any case, it’s over. This whole bodyguard trip of yours, I mean. Try to see it from my point of view, Connor. I truly do believe that your intentions were good, but—”

  “Do…not…pity…me.” He bit the words out.

  She threw her head back and dashed away angry tears with the back of her hand. “OK, fine. No pity, no mercy, no masks. I’m going back to Mueller’s tomorrow to appraise some new acquisitions for him. Since we’re being so pitiless and all, I thought you should know.”

  He was on his feet and clutching her shoulders in an instant. “No. Erin. You can’t! You can’t go back there!”

  “Why not?” she yelled. “He’s just a guy who likes Celtic relics! He also happens to be attracted to me. Big deal, Connor! This may come as a shock to you, but he’s not the first man who has ever shown an interest in me. I’ve said no to quite a few men in my lifetime. Who cares? Get over it!” She wrenched herself out of his grip.

  There was no reasoning with this breathless, clawing panic. This went beyond jealousy. This was flat-out nuts. “But I’ve seen things that I can’t explain any other way,” he pleaded. “Someone is stalking your family, Erin. I’m convinced of it, and if you would just—”

  “No! I have had enough!” She backed away, holding up her hands. “I can’t stand this anymore. I do not need your protection. I love you, and I appreciate what you did for Cindy, but I do not need you to save me! If you keep insisting on this, you’re going to drive me crazy, too!”

  Her words reverberated in the sudden silence. He saw from her face that she regretted them the instant they left her mouth. “Oh, God, Connor. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that you…I don’t think you’re—”

  “Crazy,” he said heavily. “Too late. You said it. I heard it. You can’t take it back. If that’s really what you think of me, then…then there’s nothing more to say.”

  Tears slid down her face. She covered her mouth with her hands. Her shoulders shook. “Oh, God. This is awful.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. He grabbed his coat and tried to move towards the door. His f
eet were made of lead. “Uh, Erin.”

  “What?” Her voice was a wary thread of sound.

  “If you ever have cared about me at all, do me one favor. Please.”

  She nodded.

  “Take someone you trust with you when you go to Mueller’s house. Don’t go there alone. Please.”

  “Connor, please. I—”

  “I know that you won’t let me go with you, but take someone. Do this one thing for me, and that’s it. That’s all I’ll ever ask of you.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, and closed it. She nodded.

  “Swear it,” he said. “On something important.”

  “I swear it on my honor,” she said quietly.

  He knew that was his cue, but he was still rooted to the floor.

  She picked up her phone and dialed. “Hello, Tonia? It’s Erin…yeah, I’m fine. It’s been a very strange time…can’t talk right now, though…no, just tired. Look, I have a favor to ask. Tomorrow’s your day off, right? I was wondering if you would go along with me on a job tomorrow afternoon. To Mueller’s…it’s a long story. I promised Connor I wouldn’t go alone…yes, I know, but I promised…Really? Oh, great. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll buy you dinner after, if you’re free…See you tomorrow afternoon. You’re an angel, Ton. Thanks. ’Bye, then.”

  She lay the phone down. “Done,” she said. “As promised.”

  The silence after her words had a horrible, echoing finality to it.

  She’d cut him loose. There was nothing left to say, nothing more that he could do. Maybe she was right, and he really had gone crazy.

  He hardly cared. Ghosts, monsters, bring them on. He would welcome them, if they would only agree to put him out of his misery. In any case, he’d better get the hell out of there, to someplace where no one could see his face, because total meltdown was only seconds away.

  “OK,” he said. “I’ll, uh, just get the fuck out of your way, then.”

  Chapter