By Her Touch

by Adriana Anders

  “It’s okay, Clay.” A soft, soft cheek close to his, lips tender and hot against his ear, a whisper. “It’s okay, love.”

  Feminine flesh against him, beside him. Nothing weighing him down. His breath came easier. Humming, fingers trailing. “This is for Carly, isn’t it? Mercy,” the voice asked as perfectly cool palms trailed lightly over his stubbled, scabbed-up chest. Her palms. George, who had the softest touch he’d ever felt. The only woman who’d ever gotten this far under his skin. He wanted her there.

  He wanted her here and wanted to be here with her.

  A light tweak to his nipple drove goose bumps skittering along his body and brought him back to the room. He could feel it in his balls and all the way to his toes.

  “And this. It’s about vengeance. I’ve seen these before,” she said as her breast slid along his side, her nails running a trail down his arm, over the plastic at his wrists, to grasp his hand. She was so small, her fingers fragile, bones so easy to break. So fucking vulnerable.

  A groan escaped Clay’s mouth, and he recognized it for pleasure rather than the pain he’d been channeling from memories long gone.

  His hips lifted unconsciously, showing her how hard he was.

  “Hurts,” he muttered.

  She stilled. “Should I stop?”

  “God no. Just…go lower. Please.”

  Her voice was sultry when she chuckled and slid down his body, let her breath heat his dick even more, made him feel like he’d bust something if she didn’t take him in—her mouth, her body, her palm; he didn’t care.

  “Fuck me, George. Please,” he begged, and this time, she gave him something—her hand—a crumb. Just barely enough to tide him over.

  * * *

  Clay’s body was a war zone. She knew that. She’d known it the first time he’d come to see her, but…seeing him like this, arms tied together in front of him, the rest of him splayed out, open and exposed, George felt so many things for him. He was beautiful in his pain, his vulnerability, and she wanted to hold that, to savor it, to protect it. Such a strange notion from someone who was half the man’s size.

  She caught his mouth in a kiss, deep, obscene, and openmouthed. The kind of kiss she remembered from high school, the kind fueled by hormones and youthful excitement, illicit desires she hadn’t even begun to understand.

  Clay augmented her frenzy with his own, punctuated with dirty, little, helpless sounds that made her even hotter.

  “Put the condom on me, Georgette,” he said. Her blood grew thick, heavy, and she was wet with wanting the man. She ignored him, enjoying the power, liking how in charge she felt, and wanting to abuse her position, just a little. Just to help him forget.

  With a nudge, she bent his arms up, hands clasped as if in prayer. She lifted a leg and straddled his long, thick body, the condom crinkling loudly beneath her knee. Wasn’t this what being in charge was about? Making it last, relishing the feel of him? Torturing him in the best possible way? Letting her eyes take in his tragic beauty, one follicle, one pore at a time?

  And so she did. His breathless aahs feeding her, she explored, took him in, ate him up. There was nothing clinical about the way she touched him, although she couldn’t help the occasional diagnosis. Under her tender ministrations, the big, cagey man started to let go, his body loosening and tightening not out of fear, she hoped, or anxiety, but with pleasure.

  And she didn’t just use her hands, which was a revelation all of its own. She touched him with her mouth and her nose; she ran her whole body up his, climbing him, luxuriating in the rasp of his skin against hers. Her breasts were tools too, softer and sensitive in a wholly different way. And he liked that. She could tell, because his breathing got asthmatic, and he bit her ear when she got too close. Nipples, lightly run across his chest, then fed to him, one at a time. He devoured her until it hurt, and still, she was loathe to pull away.

  But when she did, it was worth it, because he got mad, truly pissed off. Threatening her with awful, little things like “Don’t you move away from me” and “I’ll fucking get you, George. Just wait. Wait till I get my hands on you.” And contrary to everything Georgette Hadley had ever believed about healthy, well-balanced relationships, those dire threats made her hotter, stronger, more turned on. Especially when he added a helpless “Please” at the end.

  Lord, that dialed everything up another notch, and she glanced down to see the wetness left behind on his chest, the way her spread thighs pulled her open to his view, crushing her vulva to his body. No, no, not her vulva. Too medical for what was likely the least medical moment of her life. And oh, the terribly explicit way his eyes took it all in—her bottom and her…her cunt pressed against his chest, right over that dark ink. And she was open, wide open to him. With his arms bound, he couldn’t move, couldn’t budge, and she had him. Slowly rocking above him, rubbing herself so she could actually feel his nipple against her clit, she took every little poisonous word, every little threat, every frustrated bump of his cock against her bottom, and soaked it up.

  And his eyes, oh… Look at them. No longer crushed brown marbles, they were all black pupil, with a crazy lining—some undiscovered planet, its rings peeking around the edge. Like sunrise, like discovery. Fresh and beautiful and completely unexplored—and suddenly, she felt a bright, frightening swell of emotion so overwhelming that she kissed him to hide it. Not that a kiss could cover up something this deep and shattering. Although wasn’t there a certain satisfying irony in trying to hide something as big as love behind a kiss?

  * * *

  Clay had never believed in the term “making love.” He’d always figured it was an invention by people who didn’t know how good a hard fuck could be. But this wasn’t even a fuck. This was touching, just touching.

  And now that he was living it—the quiet, soft touches, the tenderness of her face, mixed with the obscene way she rubbed herself against him. Goddamn, the tenderness was un-fucking-bearable—he loved it, wanted more, needed it to end. And so he threatened, told her all the nasty things he’d do to get back at her. He lifted his hips as she finally slid down and brought her mouth close to his dick.

  “Suck it,” he said, chopping the romance in half.

  “Mmm” was her only response—the only thing she’d said for the past half hour or three hours or however long she’d been taunting him.

  “It’s fucking torture, George. Suck me or put the condom on or—”

  “Or what?” she asked with a hard, feminine edge to her voice. Shit. Shit, that wasn’t George. That wasn’t how she talked to him. She was kind and patient and—

  The crinkle of foil stilled him—everything but his heaving chest, his lungs pumping behind his too-small rib cage—and slowly, excruciating slowly, she rolled the rubber over his erection. It hurt, his skin protesting the pressure of latex, his balls already tight with anticipation. He glanced down and almost came at the stark, filthy contrast of her fingers against the angry red of his too-hard cock.

  “Does it hurt, Clay?” she asked in that new voice of hers. “It looks almost like it hurts.”

  “Yes,” he rasped out with a thrust of his hips—up into nothing. “Please, George. Please.”

  Her eyes caught his, and she shook her head slowly, teasing again and almost pissing him off for making him want her like this and then, just—

  George rose above him, lifted high onto her knees, and looked down at him through narrowed eyes. She grabbed him in her fist and slowly, slowly impaled herself. She was wet—the evidence of how absolutely soaking she was glistened on his chest—but still, the fit was tight. Good tight. Too good.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said. “Too fast, too fast, I’m gonna…” He finished on a groan as she lifted up again, the strain visible in those tender, lush thighs. Clay raised his joined hands to her chest, used his left one to lift a breast, to enjoy its weight before focusing on the nipple.
Shit, he wanted to bite her, mark her skin. Like a tattoo, only real. Mine.

  Another slide down, and he couldn’t stop the sounds that escaped his mouth, all pathetic, little whimpers, uncontrollable and weak. Goddamn, she was killing him. Another slide up, another down, and all he could do was hold on to one of her breasts and lift his hips up, trying to get himself deeper. Fuck it, fuck this.

  George said, “I want your hands all over me.” He couldn’t respond, just watched her move up and down, so steady, sweet, and slow. She tore his heart out every time he got caught up in her eyes. “Let me cut off the tie. Let me do it.”

  “I can’t, George. I’m not—”

  She stopped moving, put a hand on his chin, and forced him to face her head-on. “You’re a good man, Clay. The best man I’ve ever known. I trust you.” She moved in for a long, deep kiss and then leaned back. “I’m asking you to trust yourself.”

  Christ, she was killing him. He felt her words—her trust—like a direct shot to the chest. The heart, you asshole. You feel it in your fucking heart.

  “Will you do that, baby?” she whispered, so much emotion in her eyes he could feel it on his skin, under his skin, piercing his heart. “Will you trust yourself?”

  He started to shake his head and then stopped. “What if I hurt you?”

  It was her smile that convinced him—serene and honest. “You won’t hurt me. You don’t know how.”

  Everything inside him loosened: a release, a torrential downpour, epic and uncontrollable. There was no time to find the scissors. Instead, he let out a roar—it felt good, like busting through a dam—and wrenched his wrists straight into his chest, hard enough to hurt, hard enough to snap the zip tie in two and send her back off of him.

  He followed her up, one hand on the back of her neck, easing her down, rolling over her. He needed to surround her. To own her and be owned. To undo her the way she’d undone him, from the inside out.

  He pulled her open with his palms, feeling how rough he was against her perfect skin. The sight of her—giving, trusting, wanting as much as he wanted her—made his cock pulse of its own accord, and then, before he could come in the goddamned condom, he grasped himself and thrust back into her warmth. Right where he belonged.

  At her long, low groan, he used every ounce of control to stop, pause, suspended, breathless, waiting, waiting. Her body backed into him; calm, clean, pristine George Hadley backed her ass up, taking him into her faster, harder than he would have done, and it was exactly what he needed. What he’d been waiting for.

  A fucking animal. A beast. He pumped, driving, driving, letting go in a way he didn’t remember doing ever. Smacking sounds, wet and obscene as her body accepted every one of his thrusts. Their slick sweat and excitement making it an exercise in precision when, with the strength of his hips, he lost her a time or two, slid off, fell to the side. No more of that shit, his mind decided. Clay leaned forward and grabbed her, one hand snaking beneath to clasp that same perfect left breast, and the other winding through her too-goddamned-short hair to finally settle at the nape of her neck, where it met her shoulder. His fingers sank into the muscle there, urging her to stay.

  “Don’t move, baby.” The words escaped his fucked-up brain, and rather than offend her, they seemed to turn her on. She disobeyed, ramming her ass harder into him. “You don’t ever listen, do you, George? Too nice. Always trusting. Never fucking—”

  Her lost, little moan cut him off, and all he could do was hold on as she tightened around him. He held on for a minute as she came with a long, low ooh. His body wanted to go with her, but he couldn’t yet. He needed what little control he still held on to. To show her, maybe, that he could do it. Or maybe to prove it to himself.

  Breaths tight, he waited until she was done before leaning over her and whispering into her ear, “You okay?”

  With a slow nod, she lowered her upper body from her hands to her elbows, her shoulders sagging into the mattress, her ass lifting higher, pulling him in deeper.

  “You sure? D’I hurt you?”

  “You didn’t hurt me, Clay,” she said, and he shivered at the sound of his name on that raspy, sex-colored voice. “It was…so…good.” Was she smiling? It sounded like she was smiling.

  “I’m not done,” he whispered, manic, urgent.

  She chuckled at the panicky sound of his voice and shifted lazily back in invitation. “Do whatever you want. I’m…I’m spent.”

  “Are you sure? I—”

  “Shut up and take me,” she said, and he hesitated only briefly before deciding she meant it.

  After that, it was easy to let himself go in her body. No memories, no flashbacks, no phantoms from his past. It took only a couple dozen thrusts before his balls tightened and his world narrowed to her body clasping his cock, and his hands pressing into her hips, his tight shout as he let go, deeply, inexorably, coming harder than he ever had in his life.

  * * *

  Face pressed into the bed, George couldn’t even care that she was mouth-breathing, drooling a big, dark stain onto the sheets.

  Behind her, Clay’s hands spasmed a couple of times against her hips, and all George could think was how alive she felt. Her body was vital, awake like she couldn’t remember since those rebellious high school years, and even then, she’d been in an adolescent daze, not…aware like this. In her skin.

  This is me. The realization hit with a frightening jolt of clarity that stung her sinuses and blurred her vision. It had never been like this with Tom. Tom, ostensibly the love of her life, had never touched her this deeply, never roused this elemental beast inside of her. It made her sad. For him. He’d never gotten to have this.

  Behind her, Clay pulled out, and she reached back to hold him inside her, his hips tight to hers.

  “Don’t go yet.”

  “Gotta get rid of the condom.”

  “Okay, just…” What? What did she want from him? She finally settled for “Kiss me.”

  The kiss was long and slow and deep. After a long time, Clay pulled away. “I want…” She waited for him to finish, and when he couldn’t seem to manage more, she nodded.

  “I know, baby. I know.”

  He sighed against her, relaxing into her body for a bit before finally pulling out and padding off to the bathroom.

  She flopped down, encountering the sharply broken edges of the zip tie, and a shiver ran through her, a sense memory of that precise moment, when he’d busted out of his bindings, his muscles huge, his neck thick and veined with strain, his strength superhuman.

  But his face… She didn’t think she’d seen anyone look so lost. The contrast between all that physical strength, so certain and solid, and that face, so unsure, but hopeful and innocent…

  She’d never seen anything like it, and the image brought a new contraction to her belly, hard and unexpected, but nowhere near as powerful as the ache she felt in her chest. Good Lord, would she ever get rid of this ache in her chest?

  * * *

  Jam asked, “Where we headed, Boss?” and Ape got a shiver down his back at the sound of that word. Boss. Yeah, that felt right.

  He stood up from the diner table with a belch and patted his belly.

  “Virginia Beach.” And this had better be it, he thought, or heads are gonna roll.

  Because he was tired of hauling ass every day, tired of sleeping in shitty motel rooms, tired of running from one dead end to another.

  It was time to find that traitor asshole. “And if this ain’t for real, we’re gonna have to pay some friendly visits.”

  There was no reaction from Jam, who took everything in stride. A perfect right-hand man. They were close; he could feel it. They just needed to tie up this loose end, and then he could move on running this club as it was meant to be run. Like a goddamned efficient business.

  He popped a couple of antacids and burped again. F
uck, what he wouldn’t do for a home-cooked meal, though. The injustice of having to suffer through another greasy spoon was one more thing he heaped onto the back of that Navarro fuck.

  He itched to get his hands on him. Him and everything he cared about, because goddamn, he couldn’t wait to see that cocksucker suffer.

  18

  It was easy to pretend that everything was fine with George on his side. She spread Vaseline over his back before leaving for work, and he sank into the experience, soaked up the tenderness, lost himself in the novelty of being… What? Loved?

  According to her, his body was crusting over right on schedule. First blisters, she’d said, then scabs. His fingers weren’t doing quite as well, since he spent so much time working, moving them, washing his hands.

  He didn’t care about the scars, he realized. It was the ink that bothered him the most—like a poison deep inside. He just wanted it out.

  Clay worked on the house, telling himself he was paying her back, giving him an excuse to stick around, but it felt more like staking some kind of visible claim on her.

  After a good few hours, the clapboard was coming along nicely, and he decided to head into town, get some clean clothes, and stock up on a few things he’d need the next day. It almost seemed normal when Sheriff Mullen caught sight of him coming out of the hardware store and called him over to his cruiser. He mentioned how much the kids had loved having him teach class the weekend before and told him he’d be needing him for the next few weeks. It felt natural to let himself get roped into it. And somehow, as he made his way across the street to the supermarket for a six-pack of beer and a bottle of wine, nodding to one of the coffee shop kids and helping an old lady unwind her leash from around one of the trees on Main Street, Blackwood felt a little bit like home.

  But it wasn’t until he parked in front of George’s house, walked up the steps, and saw her working away in the kitchen, saw her expression when she caught sight of him through the glass, that Clay realized he was dangerously close to wanting this life—for real.