One Shade of Gray

by Monica Corwin

  My body reacted before my mind and reached around to hold the back of his neck. I wasn’t going to say stop. He’d started this and now he was going to have to see it through.

  “Put your hand back on the wall,” he snapped after as second of us standing, breathing, beating together.

  The fear left me. He was in control and some dark twisted part of me liked it that way. To surrender to him. To give up that gnawing part of my always questioning mind.

  At the same time, it wasn’t always like this. We had been in a reverse position only hours before and both of us wrangled for control then too. It seemed this time he’d won. Next time I would.

  His hands traced the curves of my bare hips, and I caught a whisper in a foreign language I didn’t recognize. Right now I couldn’t ask what it meant, but I filed away the information for later.

  He slid those long fingers over the curves of my thighs to my core, only inches from touching the part of me that ached for it. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you?”

  He didn’t want an answer, so I stayed silent, cheek pressed against the wall. Instead of reaching between my thighs, he released me all together but kept his lips near my ear, the only bit of him touching me now. “Go to my bed. Ass in the air. Do it now.”

  I scuttled with my pants around my ankles and paused long enough to untangle them and toss them away. I pushed open his bedroom door and went straight to the bed. Once my hips were centered over my ankles I risked a glance back at him. Something had softened in his face. No. I didn’t want that. He needed this release and so did I.

  When I shifted to move off the bed, the hard edges returned to his gaze. “Don’t you dare fucking move.”

  I froze and put my knee back in place, but it was too late. He stalked across the room and struck my bare ass with his open palm in one hard thwack. The pain bloomed slowly as the sharp initial sting released. That bloom heated me thoroughly. He put a hand on either hip. I wanted to look back, see his face, but I kept my head forward.

  “Izzy,” he whispered.

  I rolled over, and tucked my hips under to land on my ass. His eyes glistened softly. “I can’t give you what you want.”

  Not a fucking option. I scooted and bounced myself off the bed until I stood chest to chest with him. “Do we need to run through this again?”

  He blinked and I squared my shoulders and slapped his face again. His jaw clenched and his lips tightened but he didn’t move, or say anything.

  I reached out to do it again but he grabbed my wrist, hard, like I wanted it.

  Before I knew it, he’d spun me around, shoved my face in the coverlet, and pushed inside me hard and fast. I was wet, and thought I was ready for that invasion, but nothing could have prepared me.

  He held my upper back, pressing me into the bed, and fucked me with what I could only assume was decades of pent-up anger and frustration.

  Each shove of his hard length inside me was accompanied by a hard exhale, and the sound made me more wet for him. I could only keep my mouth and nose free to breathe and hang on to the bedding as he pounded into me. He took up a harder rhythm and moved the hand that had been holding my back up to join the other to clutch my hips.

  I took a gasping breath as now he had the leverage to yank me back into him until the entire length of his cock was stuffed inside me. Then he stopped.

  I exhaled, shaking, and then stilled and waited. What would he do next? I’d told him no anal but right now I might have even negotiated that. Not to mention the fact that he was fucking me bareback and we hadn’t even had that conversation. It felt illicit and sensual.

  He flexed his fingers around my hips, digging them in one by one so they curled up to my hipbones. I jerked back as he slid one of them forward between my legs and passed his index finger over my aching neglected clit.

  “You feel so good,” he whispered, drawing me toward him now, moving in and out of me slowly with the time of his fingers playing music on my body.

  It was as if the rage was gone and the gentleman Dorian returned. I risked a glance around to see his eyes focused on where his cock slid in and out of me. No indifference there at least. The look was something I hadn’t seen on his face before. Even when he’d pounded into my face in his entryway. This was reverence and worship and the fucking way to my heart.

  I turned back to focus on the bedding. His dick pulling me apart, his fingers rubbing me closer and closer to orgasm. I focused so hard it began began to slip away. He must have noticed the shift in me because he removed his hand at my core and placed it back on my hips. Another second passed and he carefully slipped from my body, flipped my hips to the side, and then dragged me toward him. I loved a man who knew how to handle a woman’s body.

  He opened my legs, climbed between them, and was inside me again. The weight of him on my belly and chest, and the ability to look into his eyes, made the act deeper, more meaningful. The exact opposite of what I was going for.

  The bastard caught that too and leaned down to kiss me. Hard and fast, gone in seconds, but the press of his lips lingered. I opened my eyes and let out a sigh. “Get off.”

  He blinked but continued his slow and steady entry and retreat into my body. As if he had it timed on some internal clock.

  “I’m not feeling this anymore, get off.”

  The corner of his lip quirked up and a prick of fear shot through me along with a wave of adrenaline and splash of curiosity-laced arousal. He raised an eyebrow, daring me to push him away.

  I tried, pushing his chest but he didn’t move. “I told you to get off,” I said with no real heat, my pussy already flooded with new interest.

  He said nothing, did nothing but stared into my eyes. I opened my mouth to repeat myself, knowing he wouldn’t do anything, not caring either way, and then he smashed his hand across my lips, the edge of his palm under my nose leaving barely enough room to breathe. And between seconds my entire body lit with fire like I’d never known. Every inch of my skin woke up and tuned to the way he slowly rocked his hips forward, the scent of his hand that smelled like my arousal, and the way his eyes darkened above me.

  Fuck, Gray.

  He picked up the pace and I gasped and moaned and writhed under his hand. He dragged his own lip between his teeth as I darted my tongue out, licking the inside of his fingers while I stared into his eyes. After a minute his pace took an unsteady rhythm and the knowledge he was close to coming ratcheted my looming orgasm even higher. He let go of my mouth and braced his hands on either side of me now, arching his back so his face remained close to stare into my eyes.

  “Do you want to stop?” he asked. It wasn’t a real question. The wet heat gripping him tight was enough for him to know that.

  “If you stop now I might just figure out a way to kill you, Gray.”

  He smiled. A new smile. One I hadn’t seen before. With teeth and those damnable full lips, and its sexiness practically punched me in the gut.

  “Are you close?” he asked, his breathing going erratic now.

  “Yes,” I managed, reaching around to hold on to his ribs, digging my nails in as he surged faster and harder into me.

  One second I hovered at the edge of it and then I fell in. Like walking off a safe stable ship deck into a roiling ocean. I held onto Gray through the storm. He collapsed on top of me, all his weight wrapped in my arms as he surged inside me again and again and again. Then finally he stopped, his entire body quaking with an unsteady exhale.

  The silence in the room was unsettling after the noise of our lovemaking. I blinked back to reality, releasing my hold on him. He didn’t move and I couldn’t help but chuckle as he laid there, his sweaty forehead tucked against the side of my neck. I almost drifted to sleep when a sharp pain on my shoulder ripped me out of it.

  “What the hell?” I yelled andopened my eyes to glare.

  He smiled, that damn fucking real smile I didn’t even know he had. The one that loosened the reigns on my doubt about him. The one I sort of wish
ed I’d never even seen. “That’s for earlier,” he whispered before rolling his weight off me and pulling me in tight to curl up in front of him.

  I let out a long steady exhale allowing him to cocoon me with his body. “I think I hate you a little, Dorian Gray.”

  He kissed the back of my shoulder and whispered, “good. It’s probably better that way.”

  13

  Dorian

  I woke some time in the middle of the night, the sweat and effects of our lovemaking dry on my skin and hers. She stirred and then curled up in the covers. It was peaceful watching her like that.

  I went to the bathroom to get a washcloth and cleaned her up the best I could without waking her. She moaned when I touched her thighs and the trust she put in me hit me all over. When she’d started trying to fight with me I knew exactly where she would take it, and so many times I’d wanted to stop it. How I had treated her…

  A bruise was starting to form on the curve of her neck and I could clearly make out a couple bruises on the soft fleshy parts of her hips in the bathroom light. Damn, I was careless.

  I took a quick shower and went into the living room. The clock on the stove rolled over to 5:00 just as I started water for tea. Going back to bed was what I truly wanted but I didn’t trust myself to be around her. As the water boiled I pulled out a notepad and pen from a drawer by the door. As quickly as possible I scribbled out my feelings to her, and why I thought it best we stay away from each other from now on. Once I finished I tapped the pad’s edge on the counter, considering.

  Would it be easier to just leave? If I weren’t in France, then surely the temptation wouldn’t be present for either of us. I pulled the kettle off the stove and peeked into the bedroom to make sure it hadn’t woken her. A snore answered as I peered through the dark. An ache started in my chest and I wasn’t entirely sure I could give her up. It wouldn’t be the first selfish thing I did in my life, and likely not the last.

  My conscience had grown pretty adept at right and wrong after so many years, but I had no idea what to do here. She’d told me repeatedly she didn’t want to be with me, and yet she kept coming back. I knew without a doubt that what had happened between us last night was what we’d both wanted. What we’d both needed.

  Did she wrestle with staying or going too? Were her attempts to push me away the same as the ones I’d tried on her?

  The thought curled up in my head, casting doubt on the last few days we’d spent together. Was it wrong to stay with her?

  Yes.

  After the incident with the books and seeing Sibyl’s face whenever I was with Izzy. Yes. Nothing good could come of a relationship between us if I was going mad. The doctors warned me it would happen every single year for the last almost fifty. I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. Well, I supposed soon was a relative term in this situation.

  I quickly made a cup of tea and prayed the cream in the refrigerator was still good. Smelled all right. I sat at the counter to drink my tea, eyeing the pad and pen sitting at the end. Was it enough? Could it push her away?

  I thought so, but I’d thought the little act I’d pulled last night would push her away too. In either case she’d be hurt. And now, after we’d slept together, it would hurt her more. Damn it, there was no way to win this.

  I sipped the tea, trying with every ounce of brainpower she hadn’t completely mummified last night to decide. The echo of her fingers still played across my skin. Every breath, every moan, every response of her body to mine. I’d remember it forever.

  Sibyl and I had a very short time together. And nothing as far into abandon as what Izzy gave me. The more time I spent with her the more I realized she was nothing at all like Sibyl, aside from her appearance.

  A light knock came at the front door. I glanced at the clock: 5:30. Who would be here at this hour? My only thought was Michael but he usually took off at 3:00 am and I didn’t see him again until lunchtime the next day unless I texted to wake him—something I tried not to do as I ran the man ragged on regular days. He didn’t need to deal with me any more than necessary on his time off.

  I grabbed my pants off the floor and slipped them on. If it was Michael it didn’t matter if he saw my underwear. If it was someone else, well, they shouldn’t be visiting so early.

  I opened the door and a man stood there, back to me, brown leather jacket, jeans, a hat, black sneakers. He turned after a second and something clicked in my head. He looked so familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

  “Are you Dorian Gray,” he asked. American accent. Interesting.

  I nodded. “Can I help you?”

  He peered into my flat, his eyes seeming to miss nothing, including the pile of clothes on the floor and Izzy’s ripped comic book T-shirt.

  The man held out his hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Jake.”

  Unable to do much else, I shook his hand. “Pleasure is all mine. Do I know you?”

  He smiled, a deep dimple in each of his bearded cheeks. His hair was a sort of auburn brown and those eyes, where had I seen those eyes before?

  He released my hand and swung his arms behind his back. “No, you don’t know me. I wonder if I might have a word with you about my sister, Isobel.”

  My two worlds converged. Izzy and Jake. Sybil and James. Except this time, I didn’t intend to leave any casualties in my wake. I glanced back to make sure I’d pulled the bedroom door closed behind me. “Of course, please come in.”

  He stepped inside and surveyed more of what he could see. The mess on the floor, the remnants of our dinner last night on the counter. My tea steaming away on at the bar. “I’m sorry to interrupt your morning but I won’t be in town long and thought I’d take the opportunity to drop by. Izzy mentioned you.”

  I tried to keep my eyes on the bedroom door, he took that in too. “Izzy did mention you, but she never told me what you do.”

  He nodded, still standing with his arms behind his back. “Oh, I’m in the Navy.”

  “Not much naval activity here, Mr. Vale.”

  He shook his head, that dimple popping out again. This man was almost as good as me at shifting emotions around his face so no one would catch them.

  There was no other reason for her brother to be here than to warn me away. He was a couple inches taller than me, his shoulders wide and full. In sheer strength, the man could probably crush me.

  I gestured to the couch and tried not to think about his sister’s bare ass having been there only a couple nights ago. “Would you like to sit down?”

  He nodded and took a seat on the very far edge of the couch, closest to the door. A wary fellow, or maybe he needed a quick escape route.

  He settled and shifted his hands to his lap, knees facing me. I didn’t bother worrying about my state of undress. I could have been wearing my best suit and it wouldn’t change his opinion of me.

  “So, was there something I could help you with, Mr. Vale?”

  He nodded and rubbed his hands up and down his jeans like his palms were sweaty. And yet nothing else about him spoke of nerves. I enjoyed the way he cast doubt on what I thought he might be feeling. Making me unsteady and unsure. An interesting tactic.

  “Yes, actually. I want to know what your intentions are with my sister.”

  Finally, we’d come to it. “Izzy is a wonderful woman. I hope to spend more time with her. At present she seems uncertain if she wants to spend more time with me.”

  He tilted his head to the side, and that same weighed and measured look Izzy gave me fell across his features. Oddly disconcerting, given the present situation.

  “And if she tells you she doesn’t want to see you again?”

  I shrugged and wished I had my tea so I would at least be able to fiddle with something, look away from his scrutiny. “Then of course I’ll respect her wishes. I would never purposefully harm her.”

  The note on the counter made that statement more than a lie. I’d definitely hurt her when I left. But causing her pain to protect her, I h
oped, was a different kind of sin.

  He gave me a nod that included the tilt of his shoulders. Something I’d witnessed countless times in good ol’ American boys. He was trying to make me feel safe. In doing so, he was making me even more nervous.

  “Was that all you wanted, Mr. Vale?”

  He waved at me with a smile. “Please, call me Jake. No need for formalities here.”

  Hopefully he would leave before Izzy came out of the bedroom half naked. His ideas on formalities might be entirely different.

  He slapped his hands on his thighs and stood. It occurred to me finally, that he’d arrived at my door. Even at this hour he shouldn’t have been able to get past my doorman without a call to me first.

  Unease began to trickle up my spine as I stood with him. He headed toward the door.

  “I’ll see you out,” I offered.

  “Thanks, that’s kind of you. I’m off to see Izzy in a minute. She didn’t know I was coming so I expect she will be mighty surprised.”

  And he will be too, when he realizes she’s not at home.

  I opened the door for him, holding it as he stepped across the threshold. He held his hand out once more and I grasped it to shake.

  When I met his eyes, all signs of the jovial man were gone. In his place stood a steely-eyed brother about to mess up his sister’s boyfriend.

  “Don’t worry Mr. Gray. I already know I can’t kill you. Which means this is going to be a lot more interesting.”

  I was sure I didn’t want to know but I asked anyway. “What will be interesting?”

  A sharp jolt hit my ribs and I went down to the floor. I rolled, intent on getting up, but the room spun and I flopped to my back. Jake’s face hovered over mine for a flash of a second and then darkness sucked me into her cool embrace.

  14

  Izzy

  The warm sun on my face woke me. I reached out my arms and rolled to my back, tingling and aching in all the good places. When I opened my eyes I sought out Gray but he wasn’t in bed. The lingering scent of boiled over water on a hot stovetop hit me, and it occurred to me he might be a morning person.