by Linda Mooney
She missed the doorbell ringing.
The grandfather clock ringing the quarter hour masked its intrusion. A minute passed. Then a voice in the foyer called out loudly, “J? J, it’s me.”
“K-Kiel?”
Before she could sit up he was kneeling in front of her, a huge flame of pure white less than a foot away. She stared, mesmerized by its brightness.
“J, what’s wrong? Are you still mad at me?” His voice was soft and clearly worried. “I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t mean—”
She reached out to touch him. To feel how solid and real he was. To convince herself he had come as he’d promised. “Kiel?”
“It’s late. Did I wake you?”
She could feel his skin, his cheek. It was smooth. Aren’t men supposed to have some kind of stubble this late at night? A hand rested on her knee, sending little waves of excitement rushing through her body, teasing her nerves. “You came?” She managed to get the words out, but her voice caught on the second word. The hand left her knee to touch her chin.
“Have you been crying?” He sounded amused. Or surprised.
“I thought you weren’t coming. Or couldn’t come.”
“Didn’t I tell you I’d be here tonight?”
“Yes, but,” She took a breath and tried again. “I thought…”
The brightness stood and moved toward the fireplace. J remembered there was no light in the house. “Wait, wait. There’s no wood in the fireplace. I-I haven’t had the chance to clean it out and replace, uhh…” It was difficult to think as the burning glow in front of her seemed to wash away the last shreds of doubt. Kiel was here, filling her with more light than a hundred sunlit days.
“Is there a candle somewhere I can light?”
“There’s an oil lamp on the mantel.”
She heard the scrape when he lifted the glass flue, then replaced it. She tried to paste a smile on her face, but the dried tears made her skin feel tight and brittle. “Better?”
“I should have called to tell you I would be late,” Kiel apologized, “but Sam and I were following a lead.”
“A lead?”
“Yeah.”
He parked himself in front of her again, close enough for her to touch. His hands rested on the divan on either side of her thighs.
“There were other victims of the Shredder. And we know now who the Shredder is. His name—”
“Wait!” J lifted her hand and her fingers touched his jacket. She left it there. “Other victims?”
“Uh-huh.”
His hand went back to her knee. When he spoke again she could hear the sadness echoing all the way to his soul.
“Me. I remembered I was one of the Shredder’s victims.”
She lifted her other hand to touch his face again. She needed to run her fingertips over his face. All this time, and she had never reached out to see what he looked like. Never traced the planes and places that would give her a mental image of who he was. His skin felt cool when she cupped his cheeks.
“Did it frighten you?” They were whispering, as if they were trying not to be overheard.
“Yeah, but not in the way you may be thinking it did,” he admitted. “I wasn’t afraid to find out who had killed me.”
A thumb caressed the curve of her lower lip.
“For those first few moments, I was afraid that finding out would mean my end. The end of me. And I would disappear without…without having…”
Fingers trailed down the side of her neck, leaving a path of fire sizzling beneath her skin. The flame rose until it was right in front of her face. It drew closer. Brighter.
His mouth touched hers, took hers. Insistent, then demanding. She needed this. She needed him to wipe away her doubts and fears with his lips, and erase the last of her worries. Her hands rounded the back of his neck to press him closer. Thoughts of tracing his face fled her consciousness as she gave in to him. His arms wrapped around her to pull her off the divan and down into his lap, until her legs straddled him.
Gently, gently he kissed her. His jacket rubbed roughly against her breasts, but the pressure felt wonderful. It felt real. Her legs were spread-eagle past his hips, and suddenly she became aware of a hardness lying at the juncture of her thighs. J gasped and pulled back slightly.
“What?” he paused to ask her.
“Are we going to make love tonight?”
“I want to. I want to make love to you. All night, if I can. But, J, if you don’t want me to, just say so.”
His hands continued to touch her, massaging her back through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. The hard warmth between her legs grew bigger, if such a thing was possible.
“Kiel.” She tilted her face slightly to kiss his cheek, his eyelids, his temple.
“Yeah?” he murmured against her hair.
“All night?”
A chuckle rumbled in his chest. The vibration made her shiver in anticipation.
“I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises.”
He moved her hair away from where it brushed over her shoulders. He began to taste her, licking her lightly across skin that smelled of her honeysuckle soap. Slowly he lowered the strap of the sleeveless t-shirt.
She knew he could feel her heart beating furiously at the pulse points in her neck. Her hands remained behind his neck, holding on for dear life it seemed. Pressing her backwards until she was leaning against the side of the divan, Kiel lowered the other strap and pulled down the top until he exposed both of her breasts.
“Jesus, J, y-you’re perfect.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but when his mouth began to explore one blushing nipple, her words failed her. Resigned and feeling happier than she could ever remember being in her life, J allowed herself to bathe in his luminescence.
His tongue lapped and twirled around her nipple, now puckered and tight and exquisitely sensitive. When he took as much of her as he could into his mouth and began suckling, sheet lightning pierced her down into her womb, flooding her, preparing her. J cried out softly; her hands pressed his mouth harder against her. His other hand was playing with the other nipple, flicking it, playing with it, then pinching it. J squirmed. And with every movement that rock-hard part of him vibrated along her folds.
“You make me forget what I am,” he murmured in the valley between her breasts. “I touch you, and it’s like having this heater come on inside me. Is that love, J? Please tell me that’s love.”
“It has to be. I can’t feel anything but how right this is. Like it was meant to be. Like it was our destiny. Like it was…” His mouth was placing tiny kisses up her chest, aiming for her throat while leaving a path of fire in its wake. Every nerve under her skin seemed to be exploding simultaneously. Groaning softly, she wriggled again in his lap. The iron rod leaped. Now it was prodding her, demanding entrance despite the thin layers of fabric restraining it.
“Predestined?”
Faintly her mind registered his whisper. “Huh?” Dizzy, she started to lift her head from the divan when Kiel jerked the shirt up and off of her. A little gasp followed his motion. Instinctively she tried to cover herself with her hands when his own grabbed her wrists and carefully placed them on him.
Her fingers encountered skin, and the shock of it made her react. “Kiel? Where are your clothes?”
“Clothes are part of the illusion, J.” He made an exasperated sound.
“What?”
“Will you ever tell me what the J stands for?”
“It means ‘I love you’.” She smiled. His flesh was smooth. Hairless. All the way down to his belly. She felt him quivering beneath her touch. “What color is your hair?”
“For you? What’s yellow? A dark yellow?”
“Mums. The smell of fresh-picked mums.”
“I like that.”
His breath smelled of peppermint. She wondered how he was able to do that.
“What color are your eyes?”
“They’re like yours. Hazel.�
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“What’s hazel? Is that a pretty color?”
“Pretty?” Another chuckle vibrated in his chest. “Girls used to tease me about my eyes and my long lashes. I can’t help it if I have long lashes. Hazel. Hmm. It’s like a combination of green and brown. Your eyes, though, they’re so beautiful. Round and expressive. Even though you can’t see with them, J, they’re like enormous windows. And they got this little brandy brown ring of color on the outer edges. I love your eyes, J. Hasn’t anyone ever told you the color of your eyes?”
“No,” she answered, before placing a kiss on one broad shoulder. He felt like a contradiction in terms: soft and hard, bendable but unmoving, tough and gentle, strong and weak. She lightly skimmed his bare back with her hands. He shivered again. “Cold?”
“No. Never again. Every time you touch me I heat up. I’ve never felt like this with another woman. Never. That’s why I’m so confused,” he confessed. He pressed his nose into the hollow of her throat and clutched her tightly against him. “Do I love you because of what I’ve become? Or because of what you do to me? Or am I finally able to feel this way because I’m dead?”
“Hush.” Raising his face, she kissed him. Only this time she let the tip of her tongue gently probe between his lips. Hungrily he opened up to her, and she replied in kind.
If she had felt engulfed by his desire before, this new exploration went from tidal waves to drowning. His tongue was ravenous as he returned the gesture. One large, calloused hand held her head firmly as his mouth consumed her, tasting the moistness behind her lips, feeling to the depths of her throat.
An unconscious jerk of her hips, and suddenly his other hand was dipping inside the elastic waistband of her nylon shorts. Fingers teased the tight, silky curls until one slid between her wet folds and started stroking, stroking, stroking.
His tongue plunged into her mouth repeatedly, dancing with her own. His finger mimicked the movement, arousing her at both ends while the fires he had ignited in her sizzled. J lost all thought and all control as the passion slowly wove its way downward. Downward, to meet the other half of her pleasure spiraling upward. She whimpered into his mouth as he continued to take her with his mouth and hand. Her hips bucked, riding against his hand and the fingers that were slipping into her.
It felt so good. Too good. He had to keep doing this to her. All night. Never stopping. Never—
Kiel suddenly jerked away, lifting his mouth without warning. The hand inside her shorts was withdrawn with a snap of the elastic. The unexpected loss made her moan. “Why did you stop?” She could feel him shaking, and for the briefest second she thought he was reconsidering. “Kiel?” she asked again, close to tears.
“You…J, you’re a virgin?”
“Uh-huh. So?”
“I mean…”
“What’s wrong?” Her body was protesting. She had been so close to the most perfect rapture. So close. Now it was dissipating like smoke, leaving her chilled and empty. “You don’t want me anymore?”
“Oh, God, no. No, that’s not it, J. I’m aching for you, can’t you tell?”
He took one of her hands and moved it between them until she could grasp that hard, hot length that had been seeking entrance between her thighs. The touch of it, the softest of skin over iron, shocked her.
“I want you to love me,” she begged in the barest of whispers.
“Are you sure? I want you to be absolutely positive, J, because if I do, there’ll be no going back.”
His lips tickled her ear. His breath sounded strained, ragged. He was struggling with something, she could tell, and it puzzled her.
“I want you to love me.” She hoped it sounded more forceful. “Make love to me, Kiel.”
He groaned loudly and wrapped both arms around her. The feel of her breasts brushing his chest was like water meeting an electrical current. J cried out at the touch, unaware of being lifted and laid across the long divan. Hands tugged off the shorts, leaving her totally naked.
“You look delicious,” he said, his voice coming from about a foot above her. “Christ, you’re all caramel colored.”
“Huh?” Not knowing what to do with her hands, she left them resting at her sides, palms on the velvet material covering the divan.
“Your hair. Here.”
He ran fingers over her scalp.
“And here.”
There was the tickle of a single digit as it made little twirls through the soft hairs shielding her mound.
“I can’t get over how lovely you are, J. Why do you cover it with those baggy old dresses?”
“Umm. They’re comfortable?”
“Well, keep wearing them,” he ordered her, but teasingly.
His request surprised her.
“After all that talk about me not wearing them?”
“Keep wearing them,” he repeated. “I don’t want any other man to know how really beautiful you are. I want to be the only man who knows your perfect body.”
She opened her mouth to retort when the brilliant glow descended, forcing her to close her eyes as he lowered his whole length over her. He was going to make love to her on the divan. Grandmama’s divan. Right here in the parlor. Grandmama would be pissed. He roughly kissed her. The flames were back and growing hotter.
His hands traveled down her sides, rounding her hips and gliding like warm water over her thighs before they trailed inward. She felt him spreading her legs, lifting her knees, and it caught her unaware.
“Shhh,” he breathed against her lips. “Relax. Let yourself go, honey.”
He kissed her lips again, a brief meeting, then her chin. The underside of her jaw. Her throat. Downward in a straight line. Between her breasts.
He adjusted his body, raising it slightly, but the kisses never ceased. Down to her navel where his tongue bathed it in erotic probing. Down her abdomen, heading due south.
J gasped. He isn’t… Surely he isn’t going to…
Yes, he is. His mouth closed over her mons and treated that part of her the same way he had treated her mouth. He moaned against her, and the vibrations pierced her straight to her core. She felt him spread her lips, and his hot breath almost scalded her. When his teeth lightly scratched over the inner surfaces, every nerve erupted, sending her whole body into temporary rigor.
“You taste delicious,” he mumbled.
Shivers of electricity kept running over her as his tongue plunged into her like a pseudo penis. Plunging. Licking. Moaning over and over at the way she felt, she tasted, and how she smelled.
J writhed, her breath rasping in her throat. She reached down and tried to touch him, but his hands suddenly caught hers. Strong fingers clutched her fingers, and he pulled her downward, digging his face deeper into her.
She no longer had control over her body. A million hands were stroking her, fanning the flames into a single diamond-hard need in the lowest part of her abdomen. Before she could cry out for him to take her and complete her, Kiel released her hands. He reared up and moved above her, sliding his hard, rough body over hers until the tip of his erection jerked at her entrance. Somehow her hands found his face.
“I love you,” they vowed together, and he sank into her.
J convulsed in pain-filled pleasure. A shriek ripped from her throat. Her hands grasped his short hair and pulled his face down to where he locked his lips under her earlobe.
His hips rotated and kept moving, never stopping his invasion. Never ceasing their thrusts into her body. As the pain dispersed and her hunger grew more demanding, she met him thrust for thrust, lifting her hips, allowing her body to take over and follow his.
His hands were beneath her, holding her buttocks steady so he wouldn’t shove her across the divan. He was heavy but she didn’t care. Tears of happiness rolled down the sides of her face. It felt so good. So perfect. So wonderfully right.
Kiel paused for a split-second to release her bottom and readjust her slightly, letting her heels rest along his back. Planting his arms on either sid
e of her, he raised himself above her and continued his assault. J wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.
The diamond brightness was melting and spreading out over them like an enormous white blanket. She felt it lifting her, promising, promising.
She was jerked through the brightness as her body convulsed from her orgasm. Crying out, her body went completely rigid, and still Kiel continued to pump into her. His thickness speared her, piercing her from the inside out. Dragging over newly discovered nerve endings she never knew could set her aflame like this.
Pounding, pounding, his rapid thrusts rode the crest of her pleasure, extending it in huge boiling waves. Suddenly her pleasure turned white-hot. A second orgasm rocketed through her, and this time J screamed.
Under her hands she felt Kiel stiffen. His hips jerked once, twice, three times before a groan rolled out from between his clenched teeth.
The brightness was fading but not completely away. Reality was gradually coalescing back into the present. Her body, however, continued to shiver from its torture. Its exquisite, beautiful torture.
Sleep pulled on her, making it hard to concentrate and harder to stay awake. J felt Kiel lift her legs higher, throwing her feet behind the small of his back, then rolling onto his side and taking her with him. Strong arms wrapped around her back, and she was gathered firmly against his chest.
Warm lips kissed her hairline. “Sleep, my love,” he murmured. “Rest, my darling.”
She felt him nuzzle her forehead, but before she could respond, she sank into sleep.
Chapter 4
Thursday
Kiel lowered his face and pressed a kiss to J’s sweaty forehead. She was asleep, totally exhausted from the stress of the past two days, and then tonight. But for this time with her, at this moment, Kiel would sell his soul to remain this way forever.
