by April Lust
I looked at her for a beat. I could tell it was something deadly serious; her eyes were like pools, and her face was still. “Okay, babe. Not tonight, and not here. But nothin’ happens tonight. When you tell me, we’ll sort it out. But you do nothin’ about it tonight. We clear?”
And just to bring her back to the now, I withdrew my finger from her tight wet channel and slightly drew my palm back, then circled her clit with my practiced fingers and squeezed it between two. Immediately her focus was back on her body, and she tilted her pelvis toward me and groaned, her head falling back. “Oh, god.”
“We clear, Erin?”
“Yes. Yes, Torch. Yes.”
“Okay, then. Now get up, on your feet. Lean over the couch and hold on. I’m gonna give you what you want now, baby. Brace for it.” As she unsteadily and speedily moved into place, I snagged a foil pack out of my back pocket, ripped it open, and rolled it on, giving myself a pump or two as I watched her amazing ass and gorgeous pussy presented for me.
I walked up behind her, lightly fingered the soft round cheeks and generous curves of her hips, feeling her amazing heat as I pressed my cock in her crack. Then I took myself in hand to guide my way into her core and thrust forward in a single strong shove.
I gave her a minute to breathe through the adjustment again, to get used to the sensation of me inside her. Fuck, but I wanted a minute for myself, too; she was so wet, and so tight, and she felt amazing.
After some seconds, I asked, “You okay?”
She nodded and said in a voice breathy and weak, “More, please.”
I gave her more. I began moving slowly, out and in and out and in. I looked down and watched the movement of my long heavy cock as it appeared and disappeared again and again, her tiny body enveloping and receiving me in its pretty pink wetness. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen, with her heart-shaped ass turned up at me, begging for more, over and over, again and again and again. I picked up my pace, and her breathing and mine grew heavier, and she got loud with inarticulate gasps at every thrust forward. I just kept pumping, and watching, holding her firmly by the hips so I could control the movement of us both.
I could sense from her gasps, her sounds, and the tension in her back and legs that she was getting close.
“That’s it, baby. Let it go.” I reached around to finger her clit with one hand, circling and pushing on it while I continued pumping forcefully in and out, almost close to losing it myself. My pace was driving, faster than the beat of the heavy music that pounded through the speakers, and the off-beat rhythm of our mad fucking was making it that much hotter.
I was about to lose it, when I finally felt her go off. Her body shook and she lost all tension; it exploded out of her, and her upper body collapsed against the couch seat. Her back heaved with her breaths. I allowed myself to go crazy then, pumping like mad, my hands locked on her hips, driving in and out of her. I was lost in the sensations of her heat and wetness and that tight fucking cunt, so beautiful and amazing. And I blew, and lost my mind, too.
Chapter 7
Erin
He was heavy on my back, still embedded deep inside me, and our bodies were slick with our combined sweat. The scent of our sex permeated the air. I was collapsed in a kind of curl on the couch, slowly coming back into the moment, and I knew he’d be at least a minute or two behind me. That was okay. His weight was comforting; I felt protected, safe, and utterly at ease. It was wonderful. I didn’t realize how much my daily tension—and the added stresses of today’s extreme tension—had taken hold of my body. He really was good for me, at least on this physical level.
As my consciousness slowly drifted back to awake, I recognized how right he had been: my body recognized him, sought him out, trusted him even before my mind did. He was offering himself to me, in a way, by asking for my trust, my confidence, my faith in his ability to help me. This was a new experience for me, and it was hard for me to grasp all the implications. But I did know this might be my only opportunity to ask for his help, to test that trust. He’d given me no reason to disbelieve what he said, and every reason to believe him. He treated me with kindness, and caring, and firmness, and humor, and a fierce strength I knew would be necessary, no matter how things played out ahead.
The bottom line was I wanted to trust him. I wanted his help. I wanted to not be alone anymore.
Britt had been a rock for me, but she had her own life, too, and her own baggage she was trying to carry. She balanced as precariously as I did. I loved her dearly, but I could not ask more of her than her love and honesty and emotional support.
But Torch was asking me to ask more of him. To rely on him. To trust in him.
And, god, did I want to.
He gave me a long squeeze, a backward hug, then kissed my shoulder blade and pulled himself up and out of me, slowly so I could feel every inch of him again. I groaned. I hated the emptiness he left behind, but I think both of us were also ready to get in a more comfortable space. I wished we would have been in a normal bedroom, but maybe there would be a chance for that later.
Later. Oh my god, I just realized what I had promised him. I had sworn off my plan for tonight; there would be no big shootout with Mr. Fletch. I was at once both regretful and supremely relieved. Fuck it all, I was Hamlet. The truth was I desperately wanted—no, needed—to revenge my sister. But my nerves and anxiety tonight—not to mention my utter relief in the safety net of Torch—forced home that I really did not want to become, in the process, a killer. I had no idea where to go from here.
“Okay, baby, let’s get out of here. We have some things to work out still, yeah?” While my mind had been wandering, Torch had apparently taken care of trashing the condom and already had his jeans on. Barefoot and bare-chested—hot damn, but he was beautiful—Torch looked at me expectantly.
“Yeah, you’re right. I guess we do.” He watched me for a minute, as I peeled myself off the couch and reached for some Kleenex to wipe myself off before redressing in my scant G-string. He tossed me his T-shirt and drew on his kutte over his bare torso, then put on his socks and boots again. I still had my stilettos on, so it seemed we were good enough to go. I just had to drop back into the dressing room to grab my duffel and handbag, throw on my black miniskirt and a top, return his tee to him, and we could be off. I’m not sure why, but we seemed to have an automatic mutual understanding that no matter the time, my shift was over.
He followed me home on his bike, and I gave him the two-second tour of my one-bedroom apartment. There wasn’t much to it; everything in it was Goodwill furniture and secondhand articles. I’d been ready to just leave it all behind, obviously. There was nothing of sentiment, nothing of attachment or personal value. So there wasn’t much for him to investigate that might have been of note. His gaze swept the space once, and he looked at me knowingly, as if he could read right off the bat that this was just a space I slept in, and not one that reflected me at all.
“Have a seat, Torch. You want anything to drink?” I asked, trying to act like a normal person might under normal circumstances, having a new friend over to visit. It had been a very long time since anyone but Britt or Thea had been in my space, and I was out of practice. But I seemed to get it right.
“Just a glass of water, babe. Get yourself one, too. Then come over here and sit. Get off your feet.” He quickly made friends with my iPod and speaker set, picked out one of my favorite bossa nova albums, and cornered himself on the couch.
I did as requested, put the glasses on the coffee table, and joined him there. He pointed me to the opposite end and adjusted himself to face me so he was sitting sideways, one foot tucked under his knee, the other on the floor. He gestured to my feet and patted his lap. “Right here, babe. Gimme your feet.”
I did, and he slipped my shoes off easily and proceeded to rub my left foot with both of his huge strong hands. He had magic in those hands. I almost started moaning, it felt so good. He was rubbing into my heel, my arch, pulling out and stretching each to
e, rolling his thumbs along lines on my soles. It was like heaven. My eyes rolled to the back of my head.
Astrid Gilberto was crooning light and smooth, and my mind was floating out near space as Torch spent several minutes on the left and then switched to give equal attention to the right. He gave me that time in silence, knowing intuitively that this was a rare and special treat for me. How often does a dancer without a romantic partner actually get her feet massaged? Speaking only for myself, the answer was never. The building could have been on fire, and I would not have noticed, nor cared.
But all good things must end. Eventually his hands slowed down, and he held the tops of my feet, keeping them warm but no longer at work.
I slowly peeled open my eyes and righted my head from its recline. I gazed at him gratefully, breathing a little heavily through my open mouth.
He smiled lightly, then asked, “You ready to talk, baby?”
I just about cried. He was being so sweet. “Yeah, Torch. I’m ready.”
“What’s got you goin’ lately, Erin?”
I took a deep breath and pulled my feet from his hands, then curled my legs under me. I grabbed my water, took a sip, then raised my eyes to his. “You know about my sister?” I asked.
His brow furrowed. “Your sister? I didn’t know you have a sister. No. What about her?”
The wetness that threatened behind my eyes started falling down my face. My voice managed to scratch out, “I had a sister. Had, Torch. Thea. Danny Fletch killed her. Or had her killed. I don’t know. Either way, it was him. So I have to get him back. I have to, Torch. I have to.” I kind of dissolved into my hands.
Torch didn’t just sit there. He pulled me across the couch, turned me so I was cradled in his lap with both my legs draped over his and my back resting half against the couch and half against his chest. He pulled my head back to his shoulder and draped one arm across my upper back, the other resting on my outer hip. He was like a big man-couch. I was breathing in his scent, cuddled in his muscular heat. I was crying on his freaking shoulder, for god’s sake, getting him all sloppy wet, and he just held me through it.
“Tell me what happened, Erin.”
“I don’t really know the whole thing. But Thea—she wasn’t easy, you know? She was my little sis, five years younger than me. I took care of her, since we were little. But she wasn’t easy. We got on okay, but it was hard. So after I got this gig at the club, I figured, this isn’t bad, and it’s good money, so if both of us are there, we’d have each other’s backs and we’d make like double the money, and we’d be solid, for the first time in forever.
“It started out good. She wasn’t the greatest dancer; it didn’t come naturally for her like it does me, but she could hold her own. I taught her a lot. We’d practiced. She was doing all right. But then, I don’t know, I think Mr. Fletch got to her. Started talking to her about other ways of earning bigger bucks, and it turned her head.
“She was always looking for the easy way out, of pretty much everything. It got her messed up some in high school; she dropped out when she was fifteen. She had gotten into drugs and was drinking too much, ya know? But I finally got her cleared of that mess. Or, I thought so. Maybe not.
“Anyway, the Centerfold scene—hell, maybe I fucked up really badly, bringing her into that. Maybe it made her think less of using her body for money. I never really thought of it like that. I feel like I control what happens with me there, you know what I mean? But maybe, Thea…maybe she felt like, what difference does it make what I do, if it makes more money?”
My mind drifted in that direction, and I got lost in my thoughts for a few minutes.
Torch brought me back to the moment. “So let me guess. Danny Fletch talked her into doing one of his movies.” He totally got it.
“Yeah. Only, something must have happened. Bad. Because Thea never came back, that first day she went to the set. She just never came home. And Mr. Fletch…Mr. Fletch, he just—he laughed—” And my tears got me again.
Torch waited me out, not letting me go. He was like a rock, warm and solid, letting me find my breath again.
“When was this, baby?” he asked softly.
“Just about two months ago. Maybe a little more. End of February. That weekend we had that big snow, you remember?”
He grunted but didn’t say anything more. It was like his mind had drifted off, too. We sat there in silence for a bit, thinking our own thoughts, lost in hazes of memories and mazes of questions.
Torch brought us back to point. “So what else do you know about it? Who else was there? Did Fletch ever say anything to you about it?”
My breath shot out a single ha. “I know it was a porno she was filming. I don’t know what it was about, but I do know there was some big secret about it Thea wasn’t telling me. She said she was gonna make extra big bank for doing it, not like a typical porno. That he wanted her, special, for it.
“I was the one who dropped her off at the warehouse where they were gonna film it. It was out of town, almost an hour away, by all these industrial parks and warehouses. She was going to get a ride back to Centerfold when she was done, so I didn’t expect to see her ‘til that night. But then she never showed up.
“When I didn’t see her at Centerfold that night, I asked him where she was, and his eyes went all squinty, and then he laughed like some little evil gremlin, and he said, ‘Yeah, Erin, your little sister, she’s something. I don’t think you’re gonna see her tonight. She’s kind of gone out. Took off. Yeah, she’s took off. The, uh, MC guy took care of that. Found her a nice little hole to lay low in. She won’t be rising up anytime soon. You put her outta your mind, now. No more questions, you hear? Let her go, be all the better for you.’
“It was the way he laughed, and the way he worded it, like not that she took off, but that she had been taken off, and then put in a hole. You hear the difference, Torch? You see what I mean? It’s like she’s in a grave.”
“I hear it, baby. I’m not gonna argue it with you. It doesn’t sound good. Did you go to the cops? If you think…Just, what did you do?”
“No. No. No cops. I—we—we can’t go to the cops, Torch. That’s not—that’s—we never—no cops, Torch. No cops.” I was hyperventilating and clutching at his chest. I was nearly panicked at the thought that he might now insist on dragging the police into this, which was the very last thing I needed. The police were not an option in my life, in Thea’s life. That was a complete no-go zone, and Torch needed to get that. ASAP.
“Whoa. Okay, baby, relax. Calm down. Breathe, all right? No cops. I hear you. I promise.”
I held his eyes, looking for truth, and finding it. My breathing started to deepen again, though it was still jagged and rough. I just kept trying to calm myself, to get control again.
“Okay. You’re doin’ good, Erin. Just keep breathin’. You feel like you can keep talkin’ right now, baby? Tell me how you’re feelin’.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m okay.” I took a sip of water, which turned into several gulps.
He gave me a few minutes more to settle, then asked again, “Who did you see when you dropped her off at the warehouse? Do you know which MC guy he was talkin’ about?” It was a little weird, because his voice was tight, guarded. I looked into his face, reading his tension, but not knowing where it came from.
“I’m not sure. There were a couple of guys by the door, at the lot when I dropped her off that morning. One was a Latino guy, I think. I don’t know his name. Tall, good-looking, maybe your age? Late twenties? Um, he had black hair, coffee-creamy skin. Athletic. I remember he smiled at us. He had a really nice smile, big, you know? I haven’t seen him around either, since that day, so maybe…I don’t know. Maybe he had something to do with it? But I never met him, don’t know his name, and I can’t be sure.
“The other guy was older, with the salt-and-pepper hair tied back, goes by Skinny or Skim? Something like that. He always seems real important around here. I think he’s, like, important in your
MC? And he scowls a lot. You gotta know who I mean. He’s not approachable, and every time I catch his eye he looks like he wants to kill me. So I never asked him. I stay away from him. I don’t know, maybe he’s the one Fletch was talking about.”
Torch’s eyes hardened. Again, he was processing all this, and he didn’t respond or do anything more for a few minutes.
Finally, he said, “Shit,” under his breath. I looked at him more sharply, wondering if maybe he knew something, like what I had just told him answered some questions he had knocking around in his head.
But he shook it a little, left and right, tightened his lips around a sigh through his nose, and hooked my eyes with his own. “Babe, you gotta promise me somethin’. You gotta promise me you won’t do anythin’ about this, and you won’t say anythin’ about this to anybody else, at least for a few more days. There is more goin’ on, and I gotta figure this shit out, and it is not safe. Promise you’ll keep your cool, and you’ll tell me if you hear anythin’ more. And you don’t plan anythin’ without me. You gotta let me take this on for you. Okay?”
