‘The … place that I … do workings … at … opens late. And my … person in charge … wants to … to …’
‘Have this meeting?’ he suggests, for me – because he’s generous. He’s very generous, and extraordinarily kind. I need an excuse to leave, and he’s willing to let me have it.
Not to mention everything else that he’s just done for me. I should really return the favour in some way and I know it, I do, but the trouble is … I’m not like him. I’ve no idea how to start things up, just like he said. I think about maybe leaning forward to take that finger in my own mouth, but so many thoughts stop me.
The main one being: what if I do it wrong? Always, always: what if I do it wrong? It’s embarrassing when other people do ordinary things – like making everyday chit-chat about the weather – and I don’t know how to do the same. Failing horribly at something so filthy would be mortifying. Failing in front of him would be even worse.
Though I realise I already have. I made a bet, and I lost it. I bet I couldn’t feel anything, and I did. I felt more than was strictly advisable, for a first date that wasn’t even really a first date. And now, I’m making a second blunder. I’m trying to leave, when I know I should stay. I should stay and do all the things that other people do so easily, so easily.
But I don’t.
I walk all the way home with the thought of every single thing I couldn’t give him, in my head. Just because I’m so afraid, all the time! Just because I’m so very afraid of myself, and all the hopes and dreams I’ve never dared have.
But they don’t matter, now. Soon, I’ll be safe again. I’ll be beyond the deep-red door that guards my apartment, and maybe I’ll think of him from time to time, with fondness. But I know I’ll never see him again. He won’t call, and I definitely never will, and everything will be as it should, once more.
And then I realise, just as I step inside:
My manuscript isn’t in my bag.
He took it.
Chapter Six
Of course I know why he did it. He’s holding my book to ransom, like a master criminal who has designs on a wealthy widow’s fortune.
Only I’m not a widow, and I don’t have any money. I don’t have a single thing that he should want – or at least, nothing I can think of. I spend the entirety of the next day trying to imagine, but the only thing I can come up with is my cat, Harold.
Harold is seventeen, blind in one eye and often farts in his sleep.
But Harold seems like a safer bet than he wants me.
He wants me so much that he kept the one thing that would make me return. He knew that I’d never come back. Apparently I’m so obvious that he can read me months in advance, and now he has something that’s going to make that psychic effect worse.
He has my book. My book that’s utterly filled with my every thought and feeling. Each chapter of it is filthier than the one before it; each word tells a tale about all the things I’ve ever wanted. And now he’s got it.
He can’t be reading it, can he?
He wouldn’t.
He wouldn’t.
And yet I know he has, the moment he opens his door to me. I might not be as good at this as he is – maybe I can’t pick up on every little nuance and gesture that someone else makes – but I’m not an idiot.
I know a gleeful grin, when I see it.
‘Kit, what a surprise!’ he says.
It is not a surprise. Surprises have stunned expressions to go with them, and his is just bursting with unchecked delight and probable mocking laughter. Oh, God, even Lori laughed after she’d heard the first chapter. This guy is going to throw a party over my died-of-embarrassment grave.
‘Yes. Isn’t it?’
I try to keep my face nice and closed – but that just makes my mouth go tight. Now my words are coming out all funny. That ‘Isn’t it?’ sounds like it was ground out by an animatronic version of me, rather than the real deal.
‘You know … I sensed that we might not see each other again. So it’s funny that you’re here. I am at a loss as to why this might be,’ he says.
‘Are you? Are you? Are you really?’
None of these sentences come out like questions. They come out like bullets, fired from a really angry gun.
‘But if you want to come in, I’m sure we can talk about it.’
‘We cannot talk about it. I’m going to open my bag, and you’re going to put my book in it. And then I’m going to go home and lie down in a darkened room where I can pretend that you did not read the equivalent of my diary.’
He does something then that I am not prepared for. I think I expect protests, but instead he makes the kind of expression I associate with some glorious victory. He even brings his fists up to his face, and half-bites on one of them.
Before saying this:
‘Oh, honey, if that’s your diary let me dive right into you. Let me drown in you, oh, praise be for your heavenly body of unbelievable sin!’ Those fists unfurl and reach for my face – though to my eternal gratitude they don’t quite make it. They’re too excited to make it. He’s like a kid who can’t believe he got a trike for Christmas, and is so giddy about it he just makes grabby hands around its general area. ‘God bless you, Kit Connor. You’re the reason I almost masturbated myself to death last night.’
‘You did not do that.’
He nods his head to one side, telling me what he means before he says it. He’s made the switch to rueful in under ten seconds. He could compete in the Face Olympics.
‘You’re right, I didn’t.’ He pauses. ‘But only because I’m saving myself for you.’
Oh, Dillon Holt. I’m swooning and you don’t even mean it.
‘I think you’re about thirty years too late for that.’
‘Hey – ouch. That’s the exact age I am.’
‘I know.’
‘Oh, uh-huh, I see what you’re doing there. You’re saying you think I’ve been a slut since birth. Which is true. But I swear, I never knew how it could be before you.’ He clicks his fingers, and I know what’s coming. I pray that it isn’t, but my praying does no good. God obviously wants me to fall under this guy’s spell. ‘I made it through the wilderness. You know I made it through …’
‘Please don’t start singing.’
‘Didn’t know how lost I was until I found you.’
‘I’m begging you. I have no defences against this.’
It’s true. I don’t. He hauls me into a rudimentary dance position, and I barely try to stop him. I just let him spin me around, drunkenly, both our arms joined together and pointing at judges that aren’t there.
‘All the better for me.’
‘You want my defences to be down?’
He looks down at me from his very great height, face suddenly serious. There’s still a hint of amusement there, and he doesn’t let me out of this armlock, but his gaze is warmer. Softer. And I can feel him making those insanely good circles on my back.
‘Well, it would make it easier to kiss you. Very hard when I have to barrel my way across a barbed-wire-riddled no-man’s-land just to put my mouth on yours.’
‘I don’t mean to be like that.’
‘I know.’
‘I want to be more … more …’
‘Open?’
‘Or maybe just less …’
‘Angry? Because you know, I did steal your book. You should probably be furious at me forever for that gross invasion of your privacy.’
Funny thing is: he sounds like he’s being silly. But his expression kind of says he’s not. I feel like those eyes of his are wrapping me in a big, warm embrace, of the sort that this dancing is maybe turning into.
‘Angry wasn’t what I was going to say.’
‘No?’
His mouth is getting closer to mine now. And he’s looking at my lips, as though contemplating that last bit of distance. Will I open fire on him, if he goes for it? He’s already encountered the mines, and that barbed wire stole one of his boots a
while back.
Maybe he wants to turn around now, before it’s too late.
‘No. I was going to say inhibited. I want to be less inhibited,’ I say, and I confess: I don’t really think much of it, when I do. It’s just a word, the same as angry. Both kind of end up at the same place – him at arm’s length.
Me with seventy-foot-long arms.
But he goes kind of still, after I’ve said it. He holds his breath. This weird tension suddenly grows and spreads between us, until I’m sure I can see it there, crackling in the air. It looks sort of like a thunderous raincloud, only really, really awesome.
And then the lightning breaks, and so does he.
He goes for me, the way drowning men go for the lifejackets. I think his arm actually hugs my head, because I can feel his elbow close to my ear and his hand has kind of come up from behind to spread through my hair. I’m trapped in the cage of his body.
But I can’t complain.
I’m trapping him right back. I’m doing some of the things I desperately wanted to do the day before yesterday, but didn’t dare – like getting my hands on those fantastic fucking arms of his. I actually squeeze one of his biceps, just to see what it’s like.
And it’s everything that I could have hoped for. So thick and solid, barely giving under the pressure of my hand. Then his shoulders, his smooth, round shoulders … Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that shoulders could feel so good?
I’m rubbing them – round and round in circles – before I manage to get a hold of myself. I think he’s even laughing about it, into my mouth … though I don’t particularly care. I’ve got his kisses to distract me, from petty things like embarrassment.
And they do the job sooo well. His mouth is just as soft as I’d imagined, from the look of it and that little hint he gave me. Though that’s not the best part. The best part is how he moves those lips, insinuating them against my own in this rolling, insistent way. I knew he had rhythm, of course, but this just takes it to another level.
He presses against me when I’m ready for more, and pulls away when I’m not – leaving me just long enough to catch my breath, before coming back for more. And just as I’m lost in the sweet pull of his lips – just when I’m ripe for it – he parts them, and lets me feel the slick suggestion of his tongue.
He doesn’t even have to persuade me to open for him – like before, with my warm and ready sex. I let him in without a second thought, thrilling at the sensation of his tongue darting over mine. It makes all these little tingles spark through my mouth, but there’s something beyond the physical about it.
Some sensuous suggestion of other things he could do, if I let him.
And I want to. I’m trembling with excitement before we’ve done a single thing, and I tremble harder when he pushes me up against the wall. We just kind of stumble around until I’m somehow there; giddiness bursting through me at the thought.
I’ve never been handled like this, before. Hell, I’ve never done the handling. I’ve only seen it in movies, when the hero and heroine are so desperate for each other they don’t know where they’re going or what they’re doing – they just end up somewhere, in the middle of blindly clawing at each other.
And then I realise something even sweeter, a second later.
My feet aren’t even touching the floor. He’s not just pinning me to the wall. He’s holding me up – or maybe, oh, God, maybe I’m the one doing the holding. I’ve climbed him like a monkey and now I’m clinging to him, desperately, as he kisses me into oblivion.
He’s at my throat now. Then back to my face, my lips. I can hardly keep up with him, only somehow that feels OK. I want to be swept away. I want him to leave these hot, wet marks all over me, right on down to the V of my shirt – and lower, if he wants to go.
Which he apparently does. He mouths at my breasts through the material, turning it wet and heavy. But that just makes the sensation more intense. The cotton clings to my skin, rubbing at me as his lips do, as his tongue does.
And then he catches one stiff nipple, and I cry out without meaning to.
‘Sensitive there, huh? And by there, I mean all over. God, you’re easy to get going.’
‘I am?’
‘Oh, yeah. You got going the moment I kissed you, right?’
He trails his mouth up over the curve of my throat – probably to illustrate this point. I squirm the second he does it, and end with another faint sigh, to feel him licking just below my right ear.
Who knew that could be an erogenous zone?
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe? Maybe is all you’re going to give me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even though I could just slide my hand up your skirt and see.’
‘See what?’
Lord, I do ask some stupid questions. But in my own defence, he is sucking on my earlobe in-between sentences. I don’t think anyone could put two and two together under that kind of pressure.
‘See how wet you are, baby. Did you get wet just walking over here?’
‘No.’
‘Did you think about all those things I must have read, and feel that heat starting up between your legs? In your pussy?’
In truth, I can’t remember – not that it matters.
I can certainly feel it now. It started as a small flame, when he first put his mouth on mine. And it ends as a raging inferno, the moment he says that one wicked word. I actually jolt to hear it, said in so exciting a way. He strips it of every negative connotation, and leaves me without the ability to speak.
‘Because I read all of it, every word, every dark little fantasy, and I swear to God I’m going to do every single one to you.’
‘You are?’
I sound so helplessly incredulous. It’s almost humiliating.
‘Oh, yeah. And I’m going to start with chapter twenty-four.’
My brain immediately flicks to the offending section, and that incredulity increases tenfold. I’m trying to kiss him back, but it’s really hard to when your eyebrows have disappeared into the stratosphere. And my eyes … I know my eyes are comically wide.
I just can’t make them any smaller, in the face of chapter twenty-four.
I wasn’t even sure people really did that. I just put it in because it sounded so outrageous, but he doesn’t seem to think it is at all. He thinks it’s a trip to the post office to get some stamps. For him, chapter twenty-four is a daily event – and now he wants to do it all over me. And even more terrifying:
I think I might let him.
Oh, God, I can’t possibly let him.
‘Not chapter twenty-four,’ I moan, as though he just threatened me with a pair of pliers and a dentist’s chair. But my hands are sort of in his hair, as I say it, and I’m making these little daring, darting forays into various bits of his body. I jerk forward and give his earlobe a little lick – maybe to see if he likes that as much as I do – and when he goes all shivery I get a little bolder.
I lick his throat, too – his delicious throat, that kind of tastes like Juicy Fruit. And he’s so warm there, too, so warm and just a little bit bristly. The whole thing leads me on like a teasing little trollop, until I’m kissing him there all hot and wet. I leave a mark where that curve meets his jawline, and another once I’m sure he doesn’t mind.
But then, isn’t that what’s so cool about Dillon?
He doesn’t mind anything. I could probably get away with grabbing him between his legs, if I had the balls to go for it. As it is I’ve managed to get his T-shirt halfway up his back, and that’s in the middle of the most terrifying conversation of all time.
Imagine if I was calmer, I think.
Imagine how I’d be if I didn’t care at all.
‘How about chapter twelve, then?’ he asks, as he rubs my achingly stiff nipples through all that material and all that wetness. It’s really hard to say no, with that sensation in the back of my mind. ‘I feel like you really, really might want chapter twelve.’
‘I don
’t think I … I kind of …’
‘You kind of want to do chapter twelve.’
‘Maybe we could start with … something a little more like chapter – oh, God, don’t do that. Don’t do that. Why are you doing that?’
The ‘that’ in question is him rubbing the heel of his palm over my sex, through my skirt. And even though my skirt is made of tweed and has the density of a giant chunk of dark matter, the surge of sensation I get from the feel of him is just … otherworldly. A heated pulse spreads outwards from the place he’s touching, and I clutch at his body. I gasp for air.
‘To get a better number.’
‘You’re not going to get a better number by playing dirty.’
‘Are you sure? Because it kind of feels like I might.’
‘You definitely won’t, oh, God, you definitely won’t.’
‘Really? Not even if I keep rubbing you like this?’
‘Mmmm yes … I mean … no. No. No.’
‘Because that is your clit right there, isn’t it? And when I just make these little circles … that feels good, right? I bet that feels sooooo good. You came so easily when I fucked you like that, so I gotta guess that you can do it in seconds, when someone’s rubbing you here. Even if it’s through material like this. Even if I’m barely touching you at all.’
He’s right. I’ve got my arm around his shoulders and I’m kind of squeezing him in these spasms, and I can hear the sounds I’m making. I’m moaning in these little fits and starts that get louder as I manage to get my feet on the ground and shift position a bit.
‘Yeah, oh, yeah. Did you just spread your legs a little for me, baby? Huh? You like that, huh? Want me to pull your panties down and lift your skirt? Maybe stroke you skin to skin? When does that happen in your book? … chapter three, I think. Yeah, chapter three is when he finds her in the copy room, and rubs her off while the whole office watches through the window.’
‘Please don’t let anyone watch,’ I say, because that’s all I can manage. I can’t tell him I don’t want him to take my underwear off, because I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. And I can’t suggest that he shouldn’t stroke me with his bare fingers, as that is pretty much all I’ve dreamt about since he almost did it yesterday.
Addicted (Mischief Books) Page 9
