It’s just that I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten what it’s like to see him being so intense. I’ve started to form a standard image of him in my mind, great and grey and immovable. And when he shifts right in front of my eyes, it’s always unsettling. It’s like watching a wolf shedding its sheep’s clothing.
Only much more exciting than that sounds.
Oh, so much more exciting.
His hand is almost a cuff around my ankle. And he doesn’t just use it to restrain me. Restraining me would be bad enough on its own, but he goes one further. He actually yanks me down the bed, hard enough to make me gasp, smooth enough to make the gasp a delighted one. In fact, I think it might qualify as a squeal.
Though he’s kind enough not to comment on it. Instead he simply plunges on into this feverish chaos, hands running and running all over my spread legs in a way that nearly makes me weep. I was starting to forget what ordinary human contact was like, and now I’m getting some my body doesn’t know how to process it.
Does skin usually prickle like that when someone strokes it?
I didn’t think so, but apparently it’s true. Every nerve-ending is firing, and that’s before he starts in on something I can’t quite believe. I see his hand go to his belt, and am sure I’m hallucinating – but then I hear it too. I hear that familiar clatter of metal and leather, so dull at every other point in my lacklustre life.
And so electric here.
Is he really going to fuck me? I think he is, though I’ve no clue why the idea makes my eyes go wide and my heart pound hard enough to break out of my chest. It’s just sex, I remind myself, but reminding does no good. I still moan excitedly at the sight of his greedy gaze and his frantic, fumbling hands.
Then louder, for his gorgeous cock.
It’s just like the rest of him: too big and too solid and too everything. He could probably beat me to death with it, if he was so inclined – and, judging by the look of him, he might well be. He’s still breathing too hard and moving in that jerky, frantic, unfamiliar manner, but none of it scares me.
I’m too excited to be scared, and I know exactly why.
It’s because of the grip he gets on me, close to a kind of manhandling but without the brute force. He hauls me over onto my stomach, sure enough. And the move is firm and quick, riddled through with his new eagerness.
And yet it doesn’t hurt. He strokes me through it, hands roaming and spreading out over various parts of my body. He has to cup my hip to make the move possible, and I feel his hand easing up into position. I feel it smoothing over me, exploring every dip and curve.
Before he arranges me on the bed.
Because that’s what he’s doing, isn’t it? He’s arranging me. He’s preparing me for that thick, swollen-looking cock, so quickly I can barely catch my breath. So slowly I want to scream at him for it. Hurry hurry hurry, I want to tell him, even though I know we’re already going at the speed of light. The turn took two seconds, and he isn’t lingering on anything else.
I can hear the snap of rubber. I can feel the need in his grasping hands, and his panting breath, and oh, God, is that his cock stroking over my spread sex? I think it is, but it’s hard to be sure when you’ve been on the edge of pleasure for a thousand years and suddenly something thick and hot is rubbing through your slippery folds.
It’s like asking me to do algebra while upside down in a jug of spaghetti. I just can’t do it. I’m completely focused on the slow, sweet pull of his cock, as it teases and explores my pussy – always hinting at something more but never quite giving it. He gets to the very outer edges of my stiff clit, before backing away.
Then just as I think he’s sliding down to meet my wet and wanting hole, he glides right over it. He ignores it completely, like it’s not even there.
He just can’t help himself, it seems. He has to play this game to the end – this endless game of teasing insanity. Just when I think he’s breaking he rallies again, and I don’t have it in me to keep pressing for more. All I can do is lie there and take it, moaning occasionally under the onslaught.
But, thankfully, the moaning is enough.
I think it’s because I’m saying his name, over and over. Or it is the way I move, every time I feel him sliding back and forth? I’m undulating into the sensation, hips rocking but just barely. Back arching for each sweet spread of pleasure.
And after a while of it, he just snaps again. He grabs at my hip, and I think: this is it. This has to be it. In fact, I’m so sure that I make a sound of relief, ready for that last little gift that never actually comes.
Instead, I hear the snap of rubber again. I feel his hand pressing down on my back, like a command – stay where you are. I’m not even sure if I’m allowed to look, though I don’t really have to. I know what he’s doing. I can feel what he’s doing. He’s breathing harshly and the back and forth of his hand on his cock is as clear as day – almost violent, and oh, so slippery sounding.
It’s that slipperiness that excites me, I know. I can almost see it in my mind’s eye: that glimpse I got of the glistening tip of his cock. It’s probably all over his hand as he works himself, though I doubt it helps. He’s going at it so hard it probably hurts – like he’s punishing himself for something.
I can’t say what, however. For almost fucking me? For nearly making me come with a strip of silk pressed against my breasts? Neither of these seem judgement-worthy. If anything, I want to judge him for not following through. I’m still standing on this ledge, waiting for an orgasm that’s just out of reach. I’m still half-mad with desire, and all I’m getting is the unbearably hot sound of him masturbating over my bare back and ass.
Or at least that’s what I get at first. He pushes it right until the last moment, still apt to tease even in the middle of whatever emotional disaster this whole thing is. I’m pretty sure he lets his knuckles graze my skin on purpose – and I know the hint of that slick cock is entirely intentional. He just dips his hand a little and suddenly I can feel it on the upturned curve of my backside: smooth and silky with pre-come, and so urgent against me.
Then, just when I’m about to protest, he does it.
He touches me, between my legs. He cups his free hand over my sex, in that good good way that tells me he would like to remain aloof but can’t quite help it. And once he’s there, he can’t help other things, either. He wants to search through my slick folds and find things that desperately need touching – like my over-sensitised and far too swollen clit.
I swear, one stroke across its taut surface is enough.
Or is it the sound of his grating, throttled groan? He sounds like he’s trying to choke the noise down, but I’m glad he’s unsuccessful. For one long glorious moment I get every bit of him, unfettered and free. His body jerks against the backs of my thighs and that thick cock skids over my skin one final time.
Then finally, finally, I get the all too familiar slipperiness, pattering against my skin.
I think it’s this that actually does me in. Not his stroking finger or the sound of his voice. Just that visceral sense of him giving it up like that, spurting thickly all over my back and ass. I feel it and my whole body seizes, as though it’s resisting the jolt of orgasm as much as it’s welcoming it.
I’m not ready, I think wildly.
But it’s too late to back out now. The sensation gets me in its grip and shakes me right out of my skin. My clit seems to swell unbearably, and just when I’m sure it can’t take any more the pleasure surges up, and out, and all the way through me – great breaking waves of unbelievable bliss, on and on endlessly until I’m wrecked. I’m wasted. I’ve been made to wait far too long and am never going to recover from this.
But I suppose that’s a good thing, in one way. If I drift into an orgasmic coma now, I’ll never have to face him and his obvious regret – the regret I know is coming before he’s even backed away from me.
And then he does, and his absence is cold, very cold.
Though it’s nowhere
near as bad as what comes next:
The click of the door, as he leaves without speaking.
Chapter Eight
He doesn’t call the next day, or the day after that. And by the third I’m starting to get the message. I got an inkling of it back there in the hotel room, when he decided to take a quick stroll after sex and then just not come back.
But now that madness is underlined: something has disturbed him. Something has disturbed him so badly that he can’t even call me and pretend it never happened – which is very bad indeed for someone like him. I’m sure he could explain away a random murder if he really put his mind to it, so the fact that he’s struggling to come up with a credible response to this is …
Unsettling.
It makes me wonder if it’s more than that … though how could I possibly know for sure? He’s never said what his expectations are. They could be as small as an assignation and as large as a relationship, with a thousand different possibilities dancing around in the middle. And I’ve no way of picking out any of those possibilities, because he never really says. He doesn’t talk about himself in any real way.
I don’t even know where he works.
But I do have his number, if I feel like asking. Oh, God, I really really feel like asking, despite knowing that’s probably the last thing you should do in a situation such as this. He walked out of the room. He did not come back. Now’s the time for me to maintain my dignity, rather than rushing for the phone to ask him what the fuck?
Or at least I think that’s what the dating guides say. Don’t they usually have sections on the rules of interacting with a man, and how it’s unladylike to call first? I think they do, though I’m not sure if the same thing applies in these circumstances. Most of the stuff I’ve read dealt almost exclusively with dinner etiquette and who should pay for a cab.
Almost none of them talked about kinky encounters. There’s no subheading for being abandoned in a hotel room; no guidelines that discuss the ins and outs of sexual exploration. The best I can come up with are a few websites and a lot of porn, but even they don’t tell you what to do in times of sudden crisis.
I’m going to have to decide for myself.
I’ve already decided for myself. I don’t care if it’s not ladylike – I’ve never been that sort of person anyway. And if I break a few rules of dating by doing this, well, what does that matter? We’re not dating. We’re doing something else instead, and if I have my way we’re going to keep doing it too.
All I have to do is call.
Which sounds really simple until I’m actually doing it – and then I’m just a mess of chattering teeth and rattling heart palpitations and lots of sweat. Oh, Christ, I’m sweating buckets. I want to check under my arms to make sure I don’t have any of those dark circles, and as soon as the phone starts ringing I forget every single thing I was going to say. The words how dare you now seem like something from another language, and I come close to hanging up. I have to hang up, so I can check my gibberish-to-English dictionary.
But I’m glad I don’t, in the end. I’m not some little speck any more, too afraid to go through with a phone call. I’m something, now. I’m someone. I made him do things against his will and persuaded him into situations he didn’t want to go near.
I can do this.
‘Kovacs.’
I can’t do this. He answers with his surname, for God’s sake, like some slick character from a movie about making loads of money. He might as well add a little you’re turn to talk on the end, but when he doesn’t it isn’t any better. I’m just left with silence instead. A long, aching silence that I’m supposed to fill with words from a language that’s no longer mine.
I want to tell him that he’s an ass, but the sentences in my head don’t make any sense. They keep rearranging themselves, from gobbledegook to barely rational to something else entirely. Something else that I never want to say, under any circumstances.
You really hurt me.
Because he did – I can see that clearly now. The silence stretches out between us like a yawning chasm, filled with things I don’t want to be feeling. He doesn’t care about stuff like feelings. He doesn’t care about anything at all. It’s his defining characteristic: a complete inability to give a fuck.
Though that doesn’t really explain the hint of sadness in his voice, when he suddenly speaks. And it certainly doesn’t explain the words he chooses.
‘I was sure you wouldn’t wish to talk to me,’ he says, so abrupt I do a double take. I jerk on my wheelie work seat – almost sending myself sliding across the aisle between the cubicles – and for some unaccountable reason my ear heats. In fact, the whole side of my face heats, as though the receiver has a small fire inside it.
Either that, or he’s touching me through the phone wires. He’s rubbing one finger against my cheek, and, God help me, I’m responding to it. That flame is already spreading from my face, down over my throat and chest and right on through to some other places that really need it.
I always need it now. I’m always aroused and always ready, primed in a way I’ve never really experienced before. Last night I woke up in the middle of an orgasm, so intense it probably qualified as stifling. I certainly felt stifled in its aftermath, too stunned to let out a sound but trying all the same. Oh, I’d done my best to scream out my pleasure.
But nothing had emerged. It felt like banging against a wall that isn’t there, which feels kind of apt in the light of what he’s just said. There’s culpability in there that I definitely hadn’t anticipated, and emotion that I can’t quite grasp, and all of it adds up to one thing:
Me, unable to think what to say. All the anger and frustration die down, and I’m left with very little. Should I insist on an explanation? I really want to, but I realise now what the issue is: I think I’m afraid of what he might say. I can deal with him being bored, or even regretful about his loss of control.
But what if it’s more than that?
‘Perhaps my assessment was correct,’ he says after a second. And though there’s amusement in his tone there’s something else in there too – a drifting sadness, like someone joking about times long past.
It’s impossible to resist. It forces me to speak.
‘No, I want to talk to you,’ I say, and it’s then that I realise how much I do. I thought I was so cool, keeping myself to myself for these past few days. I didn’t so much as glance at the phone, and I spent every evening reading instead of thinking about him.
Of course my reading most often consisted of staring at the same page for half an hour, but we won’t go into that. We’ll just focus on right now, and all the thousands of things I suddenly need to say.
And all the ways in which I can’t.
‘I just don’t know where to start.’
‘You could try demanding an apology.’
‘I don’t think demanding is my style.’
‘Are you sure? Personally I think you did very well at it, the last time we were together,’ he says, and though I can’t detect any approbation in his words, I’m not sure that lets me off the hook. At the very least I’m suddenly guilty, in my own head, of asking for something that he maybe couldn’t quite give.
‘I didn’t mean to be.’
‘So now you’re apologising to me? I think that might be the wrong way around.’
‘OK then. You say sorry.’
‘Is that another demand?’
There’s laughter in his voice now, which is a comfort in one way. But it’s also kind of a nerve-wracking, heart-thumping thrill ride. I’m starting to think I really shouldn’t have made this call at work, but it’s become a sort of groove now. I’m comfortable speaking to him while surrounded by other people. They’re my safety net, in case I should think of saying things I don’t really want to.
Like ‘fuck’ and ‘me’ and ‘now’.
‘It might well be.’
‘I recommend taking out the “might”.’
‘OK. Then it def
initely is. I’m demanding you apologise for abandoning me in a hotel room.’
He makes a noise like this: sssstthhhhh. It’s the kind of sound someone makes when they’ve been told the cost of fixing something is far beyond what the item is actually worth.
‘“Abandoning” is such a loaded word.’
‘But true, none the less.’
‘I did return later, if that ameliorates the situation somewhat.’
I love that he uses the word ‘ameliorate’. I love how he says it, too – like it has seven extra syllables and needs to sprawl out all over a chaise longue. It sounds as though it means something else when he says it, like when something is so sweet you can’t stop licking it.
You ameliorated that ice-cream.
‘How much later?’
He hesitates, so tellingly. Even his pauses mean something extra.
‘Maybe an hour … or two.’
‘Two hours?’
‘It could have been one.’
‘And what? I was just supposed to wait around wondering, for that one hour?’
‘I thought you might sleep.’
I think he knows he’s being ludicrous now. There’s a note of discomfort at the end of this explanation, as though he doesn’t quite believe it either. He definitely knows me well enough to understand that I can’t just snooze in a hotel I’m half afraid of, in the hope that he might return at some undisclosed point.
I mean, what if he hadn’t? What if I woke up to find the cleaning lady dusting around me, or worse? Maybe that cool, snake-haired receptionist would have found me, and demanded to know what I was doing there, pretending to be a guest.
I see the way she looks at me every time I walk in the door with Janos.
It isn’t a good look.
‘And then what?’
He doesn’t answer right away, which makes me think at first that he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to suggest that maybe he would have come back into the room and slept with me. Sleeping with someone implies an intimacy that we just don’t have – and that he surely can’t deal with.
Run To You Page 10
