Silent Song

by Ren Benton

  “Ah, somebody still wants to get laid,” she teased. “I was worried for a minute there.”

  Flatterers got, at best, a bored stare from her for their efforts. Lex wouldn’t waste his breath if he didn’t mean it — which wasn’t to say that his intentions toward her didn’t include lying and laying and variations with vertical orientation, only that appeals to her vanity had no role in his pursuit of any position. “I have a lot of tension.”

  Another husky laugh wound around him. “Want me to pull over so we can get it over with?”

  He pretended to think about how much public exposure he was willing to subject her to in his pursuit of pleasure. “You’d better take me home. It’s going to take some time to cope with my upset, and an interruption by a Good Samaritan or law enforcement will only make more work for you later.”

  Gin returned them safely to the garage and removed the keys from the ignition. She craned her neck to look at the blanket wadded on the back seat. “So... here?”

  Lex really had expected this quest to go awry, either due to forces beyond his control or something idiotic springing from his mouth, which often felt like the same thing. Now that his goal was literally within reach, though, the location seemed unacceptably crass. Flowers and candlelight didn’t impress Gin, but even she must have a minimum threshold for romance this setting failed to meet. “Anywhere you’ll have me.”

  She looked at him, then down at the expanse of seat between them, then turned her head toward the steering wheel. “I’d have you right here, but somebody would end up leaning on the horn and attract attention we don’t want, so I suppose we’ll have to move.”

  In two seconds, she’d slipped over the back of the seat, sleek and agile as... some kind of wildlife he’d regret comparing her to in his present condition. Next time he flipped past the Discovery Channel and caught a glimpse of an otter, he’d rather not have to explain why he was erect by association.

  She hooked her arm over the seat and rested her chin on the back of her hand. “Second thoughts, Perry?”

  He dipped his head and touched his lips to hers. She leaned into the kiss, eagerness evenly matched with his, obliterating anything remotely resembling a thought with one flick of her tongue.

  Fingers clutching the neck of his shirt urged him to follow her route to the back seat. Any more dignified method would require giving up her mouth, so he went quietly and with all the grace of a monstrous mechanical spider with a drunken pilot. He ended up straddling her, looming and domineering and completely at her mercy.

  He forced himself to explore something other than her drugging lips. “Have you gotten anything pierced?”

  She gave a little moan as he sucked her flawless earlobe. “No.”

  He moved down her neck, ignoring the stab at his heart as his lips crossed the scar that could have ended her life. His hands slid under the hem of her shirt, seeking bare skin to confirm her warmth and vitality. “Tattoos?”

  A soft huff of laughter ruffled his hair. “I’m too much of a baby. The sight of you with a fresh one made me cry.”

  He thought she’d be pleased he’d turned the nickname the media had given them into a permanent declaration. Instead, she’d scolded him about infection, tetanus, and hepatitis like he’d been playing in medical waste — his tattoo artist would have called her out for the insult if he’d known. Lex didn’t recall tears. “Did you really?”

  Her fingertips sank into his back, just under the edge of the wings unfurling across his shoulders. “It looked like a wound, and you let someone inflict it for hours.”

  It was too easy for him to lose a photo or a ring or any other keepsake. When he wanted to memorialize something forever, he had the memento drilled into his flesh. “Pain is easier to remember than pleasure. When I never want to forget a good thing, I make it sting for a few hours, ooze and burn for a few days, and then itch and peel for a week.”

  Her palms smoothed over his shoulders and down his arms, stopping at the wing tips wrapped around his arms like fingers as if she could see their exact placement through his shirt. “There are these things called journals.”

  He laughed against her lips, then kissed them quiet and soft and swollen.

  When he let her go so they could both breathe, she said, “I can’t beat you with a riding crop to make this memorable.”

  “Then you’ll have to refresh my memory the old-fashioned way.” He pushed her shirt up and over her head. “Repetition.”

  He wished he had enough light to see her, but the glaring beam of her phone would offer all the atmosphere of an autopsy. Taste and touch would have to be his guides to rediscovering what made her feel good. He lavished attention across her shoulders and the fine arches of her collarbones. Her nipples, already pulled tight, hardened under his tongue. He took his time working his way down her ribs, her flat belly, the dent of her navel, distorted by another scar.

  There, he encountered the drawstring holding up her flannel pajama bottoms. The waistband loosened with a tug and rolled down her hips. He slid to the floor on his knees to pay tribute and gave her a long, slow lick.

  Her leg shifted restlessly against his arm. “We could have done this on the kitchen counter,” she said breathlessly.

  He left his tongue pressed against her clit until her hips squirmed to get the friction she craved. He rewarded her impatience with a long, soothing stroke and two lightning strikes with his tongue that made her back arch off the seat. “If you want to get caught, I’ll spread you on the dining room table next time and devour you while everyone else makes polite breakfast conversation.”

  Her legs fell limp over his shoulders until a slow suck made both heels dig into his spine, demanding more. “Says the man who wouldn’t even hold my hand in front of witnesses.”

  Her tone wasn’t light enough to pass as a joke, and it was more chilling than the draft leaking through the door. “You’re not a photo op.” Her love had been the only thing that was his — he wasn’t sharing it with gawkers.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  If it didn’t matter, she wouldn’t have said it, wouldn’t have remembered it for five years to pull out now.

  Why would she lie?

  Because he’d promised her pleasure, not pain, and the past hurt.

  He put his mind and his mouth to delivering the pleasure. When she was making greedy little sounds, he added his fingers.

  An element of role-playing often came with being a rock star girlfriend, which got overdone when he was alone with a woman who took the role seriously. Gin put all her fiction on the screen; in life, she had no artifice. She held back, edited in her head, kept everything controlled, and she wanted to be just as dignified in bed. When she thrashed and moaned, she hated him — just a little — for the loss of her precious control. And when that little spark of hate dropped into the deep, still pool of love and tenderness... boom.

  He’d become accustomed to his temper and dramatic romantic partners resulting in explosive arguments, but peaceful days and apocalyptic sex with Gin had made a convert of him. Day-to-day instability would never feel right to him again.

  Her hands fluttered over the wings inked on his shoulders. Her short nails pierced the back of his neck as if he were her prey. Her body strained, and she yanked his hair so hard, his eyes stung.

  Yes. The pain sharpened the memory like a needle, embedded her taste, her sounds, the feel of her pussy clenching his fingers so deep in memory, they would haunt his dreams instead of her tears, her broken voice saying goodbye, his shame that he’d given her a million reasons to leave him sooner and finally succeeded in destroying whatever kept her with him for so long.

  She collapsed against the seat with a gasp.

  Lex closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against the thigh weighing heavily on his shoulder. “Asleep yet?”

  Her fingers curled against his scalp. “You don’t get off the hook that easily,” she murmured. “I warned you about picking fights.”

  His ach
ing dick throbbed in penance. “I’m ready to face the consequences of my actions.”

  He rose, and she pushed him back onto the seat and straddled him, deliciously bare, frantically warm. The pressure against his cock made him hiss. Then he curved his hands around her hips and pulled her closer because only she could ease it.

  Loose and languid post orgasm, Gin had more patience for leisurely kissing than the man whose hips she gripped with her knees.

  His hand squeezed her nape while she nibbled her way around his ear. “Will you do me a favor?”

  “Mm.” She pressed harder against the ridge straining to be free of his sweatpants.

  He chuckled against her shoulder. “Thank you very much, but not that. I left the condoms on the dash.”

  She hated to move, but those were crucial for what she had in mind next. She eased away from him by degrees — legs, torso, hands, and finally lips. Resentment danced over her skin at the points of separation. Before it spread further, she stretched over the front seat and groped in the dark for the box.

  Lex used the intermission to let his hands roam her hips and thighs. “You’re beautiful.”

  She rolled her eyes, and nowhere in her field of vision was there so much as a speck of starlight to alleviate the blackness. “You can’t see a thing.”

  “My other senses are compensating.”

  His thumb found a sensitive spot on the back of her knee, and it took her several dizzy seconds to realize the thing being mangled in her hands was the box of condoms. “Got ’em.”

  Before she could turn to put one on him, he pulled her down to sit on his lap, her back to him. He took the box from her hands. “Don’t move.”

  Being in such a defenseless position made her flinch.

  Lips pressed against her stiffened spine. “I know your boundaries, Gin.”

  Lack of trust was something she’d never experienced with Lex, and he wasn’t to blame now. She didn’t truly believe he’d do anything to hurt her, but she deserved some form of punishment, revenge for the way she’d abandoned him five years ago when he was defenseless.

  A shudder took a slow path through her body.

  “You’re cold.”

  “No.” Her body burned with want for him — if only it would burn away her guilt so there was nothing between them. “Please, Lex.”

  He dealt with protection more efficiently than she ever could, lifted her, and guided the head of his cock along slick folds his lips and tongue had thoroughly satisfied moments earlier, coaxing forth a deeper, clenching hunger that demanded more of him, all of him, now. He nudged the entrance of her vagina, teasing until she swore and whined, then controlled her hips in a torturously slow descent, sheathing the thick shaft deep inside her.

  Gin clung to the back of the seat, the chill of the vinyl doing nothing to cool her feverish forehead. Lex clamped an arm around her waist to still her frantic movements and applied his fingers to her clit.

  He always wanted to come last like it was a matter of pride.

  She defied the restriction of her mobility with a subtle roll of her hips that made him growl — shattering his control was also a matter of pride. He squeezed her tighter, hips lifting under her, straining to get impossibly deeper. The demanding fullness and the rhythm of his fingers had her panting and moaning within minutes, and her second quaking orgasm secured his victory.

  She hung her head and dug her nails into the seat to arrest her wilt toward the floor. Lex bent over her, face pressed between her shoulder blades, both arms wrapped snugly around her. Fabric abraded her oversensitive skin, and she realized he still wore his shirt and sweatpants while she was stripped bare, as if he wanted no more contact with her than strictly necessary for the agreed upon sex.

  She deserved nothing more from him. She’d walked away from his love five years ago.

  She kept her breathing even, no hitch in her chest to give away the tears streaking from her eyes.

  Lex breathed her in while waiting for their hearts to tire of trying to break through the bars of their prisons and reunite. “I’ll remember this without a riding crop,” he mumbled without removing his lips from her skin.

  “Is that what you like?”

  “Mm.” His own indistinct sound set off a quiet alarm — he was too wrapped up in the feel of her to know what he was agreeing to. “Wait. What is ‘what’?”

  “Nipple clamps and whips.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  She stiffened in his arms.

  Not kidding, then. A guy made one offhand quip, and he was branded for life as wanting to be branded and whatever less-scarring kinks came with it.

  Since Gin liked stories, even the ugly ones, he broke the rule known to every man about discussing other women in sexual terms. “I used to date a woman, Sophie, who had one of those beds with the drawers underneath. Four big dresser drawers. Every one of them full of handcuffs, whips, dildos, ropes, blindfolds, candles, cock rings, lube, costumes, butt plugs, and things I’m not worldly enough to guess the purpose of, scary shit with suction cups and electrodes.”

  She snickered, either mocking his naïveté or greeting it with her own.

  “She had a porn library worthy of a museum. She was down for being covered in hummus and having shots drunk from any body cavity or anything else a twenty-five-year-old rock star should be panting to experience.” And Lex had panted. For a while. “Before long, I felt like I needed a director, choreographer, and stunt double to get through every production. I’m supportive of whatever gets a woman off, but... that’s what got her off. I didn’t need to be there. I was one more prop that wouldn’t be missed if I rolled out of reach.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “I played along as best I could, until one day she started making out with one of her girlfriends and invited me to join in.” He couldn’t claim he’d never overindulged when it came to sex, but there were limits to his willingness to share and be shared. “Instead of seizing my manly destiny, I whined something like ‘Don’t you even like me?’”

  She made a soft, sympathetic sound.

  He loosened his grip on her long enough to grab the comforter and wrap it around her front because his arms weren’t enough to keep her warm. “I’m happy without the gimmicks but will accommodate requests, up to the point where I want to cry.”

  She reached over one bare shoulder to pet his hair. “Speaking from experience, you’ve always performed satisfactorily without gimmicks.”

  “My fragile ego appreciates your vote of confidence.” He turned her ninety degrees in his lap and tucked her feet under the blanket. “With all that experience, why ask what I like?”

  She swiped her face with one hand and rested her head against his shoulder. “I always wondered if you toned it down because I’m not... adventurous.”

  He’d had plenty of adventures, and there was no shortage of offers if he wanted to have more, multiple times a day. One woman whose invitation would bring him running across the country was all the excitement he’d needed in years. “The only time I consciously made a tone adjustment with you was the first time. The internet is shockingly light on information about sex after a hysterectomy.”

  What little he could find was worse than useless. There might be decreased lubrication... or not. Decreased sensation... or not. Muted orgasms... or not. And not one word about the possibility of injuring her. He’d had nightmares about puncturing her altered anatomy and found absolutely no reassurance online.

  She drew her knees up to her chest, curling into herself like she had that day in the boathouse. “Yeah, when the internet gives you crickets, it’s a bad sign. The message was clearly Who cares? You’re not a real woman now. Nobody wants to fuck you anyway.”

  He’d thought about the surgery’s impact on her in terms of having children — she’d insisted he think about it — but he’d never guessed it affected the way she thought of herself sexually. The way he’d lusted after her, he would have laughed at the s
uggestion anything about her could be undesirable.

  “I was a little apprehensive, too,” she admitted quietly.

  He found her hand in the dark and twined their fingers. “I was the first, after?”

  Her jerky nod banged her forehead against his jaw. “I had issues with being touched.”

  He’d have been touch-me-not after what she’d been through, too, for much longer than she had, and he definitely would have chosen better than him to make a comeback with. If he’d known, he would have been... he didn’t know what. Better, somehow. Worthier. More appreciative of being chosen as the man she allowed to touch her.

  No. He’d have gotten wasted to silence the voice telling him a worthless drunk didn’t deserve to be special to her.

  Her fingers fidgeted against his wrist. “Does it feel weird?”

  “There is absolutely nothing weird about you.” She was slick, responsive, tight. Perfect. But she wouldn’t ask a question like that if she wanted to hear she was anything other than completely average. “I would not be able to pick your vagina out of a lineup.”

  He knew it was the right awful thing to say when she quaked with laughter. “Glad to hear it.”

  He tipped up her chin and captured her lips in a clingy, lingering kiss. She sighed into his mouth and turned to wrap both arms around him.

  He’d had enough adventure. He was ready to come home to his girl and be held.

  By this girl, who had always felt like home to him.

  Gin could have slept in the garage, comfortably trapped in a blanket bubble with Lex’s body heat, but somebody played the I’m-too-tall-for-this card, forcing her to get dressed and shamble through the cold to reach more spacious shelter.

  Lex closed the door while she reset the alarm. “Sleep with me. I’ll keep you warm.”

  She knew from experience that heavy-lidded slump of his was no guarantee of a restful night. “I don’t think we’d do much sleeping.”